He sat down, a thought wearily.
"So far as Lord Ostermore is concerned, it speeds--as you would wish it.
So far as I am concerned"-- he paused and sighed--"I would that it sped not at all, or that I was out of it." Sir Richard looked at him with searching eyes.

"How ?" he asked.

"What would you have me understand ?" "That in spite of all that has been said between us, in spite of all the arguments you have employed, and with which once, for a little while, you convinced me, this task is loathsome to me in the last degree.
Ostermore is my father, and I can't forget it." "And your mother ?" Sir Richard's tone was sad, rather than indignant; it spoke of a bitter disappointment, not at the events, but at this man whom he loved with all a father's love.
"It were idle to go over it all again.

I know everything that you would--that you could--say.

I have said it all to myself again and again, in a vain endeavor to steel myself to the business to which you plighted me.