He bent his head humbly and solemnly as Dr. Spenlove and Mr. Moss left the room together.
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
A MOTHER'S JOY.
For the first time in their lives these two beings, whose fates were so strangely linked together, faced each other--the mother who believed her child to be dead, the father who had brought up that child in ignorance of her birthright. It was a solemn moment, more trying to the man who had erred than to the woman who had fallen. To him the truth was as clear as though it were proclaimed with a tongue of fire, to her it had yet to be revealed. How feeble was the human act when brought into juxtaposition with destiny's decree!
Aaron's sin had been ever before him; the handwriting had been ever on the wall. Scarcely for one day during the last twenty years had the voice of conscience been stilled, and it had been dart of his punishment that the inherited instincts of the child had worked inexorably against all his efforts; her silent resistance to the lessons he would have inculcated had been too powerful for him; and in the end she had turned resolutely from the path into which, with inward reproaches, he had endeavored to lead her, and had obeyed the promptings of her nature in mapping out her own future.
Keen as was Aaron's sufferings, he experienced a sense of relief that the bolt had fallen, and that the hour of retribution had arrived; the agony of suspense was over, and he accepted with mournful resignation the decree which ordained that he should pass judgment upon himself.
A difficult task lay before him; the revelation he had to make must be made with tact and delicacy, in consideration for the mother's feelings. Joy, as well as sorrow, has its fears.
Forgetful for the moment of his own domestic grief, a sympathetic pity for the bereaved woman stirred Aaron's heart. Her tribulation was expressed in her face, which was pale with woe; her eyes were suffused with tears; her limbs trembled as she sank into the chair which he placed for her. It was not he alone who was experiencing the tortures of remorse.
Mrs. Gordon was in mourning, and Aaron believed it was for her child. Except that time had left its marks upon her countenance there was but little change in her, and few persons who had known her in her springtime would have failed to recognize her in her middle age.
Her union with Mr. Gordon had not been entirely unhappy; he had performed his duty toward her, as she had done toward him, and though he had a suspicion that, through all the long years, she never lost sight of her secret sorrow, he made no reference to it, and she, on her part, did not intrude it upon him. Even on his deathbed he did not speak of it; she understood him well enough to feel convinced that he would answer no questions she put to him, and she sincerely desired not to distress him, for she had grown to be grateful for his faithful fulfillment of the promise he had made.