"Forgive you!" said Lily, in surprise. "Why, you have been kind to us It was not you who said those dreadful words to grandfather. There is nothing to forgive in you."
"There is much to forgive," said Felix impetuously; "much, very much, if it be true that the sins of the father shall be visited on the children. I am in that state of remorse that I feel as if I had been the cause of your suffering and your pain."
"Nay, you must not think that," she said, in a very gentle voice; "I am not well, and we have come a long, long way."
"Well, but humour my whim," he persisted; "it will please me. Say, 'I forgive you.'"
"I forgive you," she said, with a sad sweet smile.
"Thank you," he said gravely, and touched her hand: and as he walked into the house again, and into the study where his father and old Wheels were, Lily's sad smile lingered with him, and made him, it may be presumed, more unreasonably remorseful.
While this scene was being enacted outside the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's house, the conversation between the minister and old Wheels was proceeding. When Lily was out of the room, the old man said,
"Will you please detain me here as short a time as possible, sir, as we have much to do and far to go?"
"I will not detain you long," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in the tone of a man who is about to smite his enemy on the hip; "possibly you would not have remained, had you not been curious to know what I have to say respecting your son-in-law."
"Possibly not, sir; you may guess the reason why I wished the tender girl who was here just now not to be present while you spoke."