can't agree. He says I'm just simply your dupe. He says I have no mind of my own. He says I've turned over to you for safe-keeping what little brains I ever had. Now, Farrar, that was going a step too far, and I told him so. I'm no fool. You know that. I've got as much good sense and sound judgment as the next man. And I won't permit any one, not even my own father, to call me a fool. Would you?"
The rector did not answer him. How could he? The situation was too pathetic, too tragic, to permit of either a confirmation or denial of the correctness of the young man's attitude.
But Barry did not wait for a reply. He hurried on:
"And that isn't all, Farrar. He says I've got to throw the widow overboard."
"Mrs. Bradley?"
"Yes, Mrs. Bradley. He says I've got to break with her, lock, stock and barrel. Now, you know, Farrar, I can't do that. I never could do that. It's impossible! Why, I'd as soon think of breaking with God!"
He did not mean to be irreverent. He was simply in dead earnest, and he looked it. But he was also in deep distress, and his distress wrung the heart of the sympathetic and self-accusing rector of Christ Church.
"Barry," he said, "if I am responsible in any way for the misfortunes that have overtaken you—and God knows I may be—I ask your forgiveness from the bottom of my heart."
Barry smiled at that. "Oh, now look here, Farrar," he replied. "I didn't come here to put any blame on you. You've been my friend and counselor, not my enemy—never my enemy."
"Thank you, Barry. Thank you a thousand times! Now tell me what I can do to help you. I would be the basest ingrate on earth if I did not stand by you to the limit of my power."
"Nothing, Farrar, nothing. I don't want help—just companionship."
