These devotions formed a part of his father's life into which Hyacinth never really entered at all.

He neither rebelled nor mocked.

He simply remained outside.

So when his father wandered off to solitary places on the seashore, and sat gazing into the sunset or a gathering storm, Hyacinth neither followed nor questioned him.

Sometimes on winter nights when the wind howled more fiercely than usual round the house, the old man would close the book they read together, and repeat aloud long passages from the Apocalypse.
His voice, weak and wavering at first, would gather strength as he proceeded, and the young man listened, stirred to vague emotion over the fall of Babylon the Great.
For the most part Hyacinth's time was his own.