I seized up the tablet from where it had tumbled on the floor. I smeared it with a fresh coating from the saucer. His first waking eyes, I swore, should look upon the written evidence of his acquittal. While I was waiting for the stuff to dry, he stirred, murmured and opened his eyes.
“Renalt!” he said, in a very low, weak voice.
Speech had returned to him. I knelt by his side and passed my tremulous arms underneath him.
“Father,” I said, “you can speak—you are awake again. I have something to tell you; something to say. Don’t move or utter a sound. You have been asleep all this time—only asleep. While you were unconscious old Peggy has been taken ill—very ill. In the fear of death she has made a confession. Father, I saw what you wrote on this—look, on this tablet! It was all untrue; I have wiped it out. It was Peggy killed Modred—she has confessed it.”
He lifted his unstricken hand—the other was yet paralyzed—in an attitude of prayer. Presently his hand dropped and he turned his face to me, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Renalt,” he murmured, in the poor shadow of a voice, “I thank my God—but the greater sin—I can never condone—though you forgive me—my son.”
“Forgive? What have I to forgive, dad? My heart is as light as a feather.”
He only gazed at me earnestly—pathetically. I went and sat by his side and smoothed his pillow and took his hand in mine.
“Now the incubus is gone, dad, and you’ll get well. You must—I can’t do without you. The black shadow is passed from the mill, and the coming days are all full of sunshine.”
“What has she—confessed? How did—she—do it?”