In his secret heart he was angry at Colin's calm respectability. A
spendthrift prodigal, wasting his substance in riotous living, would
have been easier to manage than this young man of æsthetic tastes,
whose greatest extravagance was a statuette or a picture. Tallisker,
too, was more uneasy than he would confess. He had hoped that Colin
would answer his father's summons, because he believed now that the
life he was leading was unmanning him. The poetical element in his
character was usurping an undue mastery. He wrote to Colin very
sternly, and told him plainly that a poetic pantheism was not a whit
less sinful than the most vulgar infidelity.

Still he advised the laird to be patient, and by no means to answer
Colin's letter in a hurry. But only fixed more firmly the angry
father's determination. Colin must come home and fulfil his wish, or
he must time remain away until he returned as master. As his son, he
would know him no more; as the heir of Crawford, he would receive at
intervals such information as pertained to that position. For the old
man was just in his anger; it never seemed possible to him to deprive
Colin of the right of his heritage. To be the 13th Laird of Crawford
was Colin's birthright; he fully recognized his title to the honor,
and, as the future head of the house, rendered him a definite respect.

Of course a letter written in such a spirit did no good whatever.
Nothing after it could have induced Colin to come home. He wrote and
declined to receive even the allowance due to him as heir of Crawford.
The letter was perfectly respectful, but cruelly cold and polite, and
every word cut the old man like a sword.

For some weeks he really seemed to lose all interest in life. Then the
result Tallisker feared was arrived at. He let ambition go, and