I took them up, almost mechanically, and separated them, and laid them together again finger to finger, and thumb to thumb, and held them with a stupid sort of feeling, as if I could never put them down and go away.
What would my father's face be like when he took them up this very morning to go out and look for me?
and when--oh when!--should I see his face again?
I began to feel what one is apt to learn too late, that in childhood one takes the happiness of home for granted, and kicks against the pricks of its grievances, not having felt the far harder buffetings of the world.
Moreover (which one does not think of then), that parental blunders and injustices are the mistakes and tyrannies of a special love that one may go many a mile on one's own wilful way and not meet a second time.
Who--in the wide world--would care to be bothered with my confidence, and blame me for withholding it?
Should I meet many people to whom it would matter if we misunderstood each other?
Would anybody hereafter love me well enough to be disappointed in me?
Would other men care so much for my fate as to insist on guiding it by lines of their own ruling?
I pressed the gloves passionately against my eyes to keep in the tears.
If my day-dreams had been the only question, I should have changed my mind now.

If the home grievances had been all, I should have waited for time and patience to mend them.

I could not have broken all these heart-strings.

I should never have run away.

But there was much more, and my convictions were not changed, though I felt as if I might have managed better as regards my father.
Would he forgive me?
I hoped and believed so.