"Netta doesn't deserve it!" exclaimed Gwen.
"I dare say not, but your conscience demands it. Honour forbids you to expose Netta, but the affair was so discreditable that I want your part at least to be set straight. That sovereign was ill-gotten gains, Gwen!"
"Oh, Dad! Are you very angry with me?"
"No, not angry, but I wish you'd trusted me. The whole business, childie, hasn't been on the square."
"I knew it wasn't, all the time," confessed Gwen, scrubbing her eyes. "But—oh, Dad, it was so hard! Why do such hard places come into one's life?"
"To give one the opportunity to get strong. If everything were always pleasant and smooth and easy, we should be poor sort of creatures in the end, with no character worth having. I feel that every day myself, and give thanks for the hard things, and I've had my share of them."
Gwen looked at Father, and a sudden perception of his meaning swept over her. Young as she was, she knew something of the struggles and disappointments, the lack of appreciation, the mistrust, the misconstructions, the slights which had met him in his parish work, and the burden of poverty which he carried so bravely and uncomplainingly—somewhat, too, perhaps, she divined of the hopes he had left behind. Her own little struggles faded into nothingness in the shadow of his.
"Yes, you've had a hard life, Dad," she repeated slowly.
"Sentry duty. That's all! A hard life is the soldier's post of honour," said Father.
He looked far out over the sea as he spoke, and it almost seemed to Gwen as if his face shone.