My son ... my son,' said Francis Crawford before the blurred, failing candles,...

My son ... my son,' said Francis Crawford before the blurred, failing candles, their light searching over his disordered, bent head and closed eyes and the long, scarred lines of his hands, laid flat on the steel.
'So small a spirit, to lodge such sorrows as mankind has brought you. Live ... live ... Wait for me, new, frightened soul. And though the world should reel to a puny death, and the wolves are appointed our godfathers, I will not fail you, ever.