"The next night I called out John Bard. He had been in hell all those
years, like me, for he had waited for my coming. He begged me to let
him have you; said you loved him as a father; I only laughed. So we
fought, and he fell; and then I saw you running over the lawn toward us.
"I remembered Joan, her pride and her fierceness, and I knew that if I
waited a son would kill his father that night. So I turned and fled
through the trees. Anthony, do you believe me; do you forgive me?"
The memory of the clumsy, hungered tenderness of John Bard swept about
Anthony.
He cried: "How can I believe? My father has killed my father; what is
left?"
The solemn voice replied: "Anthony, my son!"
He saw the great, blunt-fingered hands which had killed men, which were
feared through the length and breadth of the mountain-desert, stretched
out to him.
"Anthony Drew!" said the voice.
His hand went out, feebly, by slow degrees, and was caught in a mighty
double clasp. Warmth flowed through him from that grasp, and a great
emotion troubled him, and a voice from deep to deep echoed within
him--the call of blood to blood.
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