But who could this old man be? Then at the same moment she recognized him as the old man whom she had taken care of when he was ill on the train during her journey out west, and at once she knew that he must be Tom’s Uncle Joe, the queer old man who had cast his nephew off, yet who seemed to be always hanging round on the offchance of making up with him again.
Grace must be comforted. That was the one thought in Bertha’s mind, as she stepped quickly across the floor and, pushing the old man to one side with very little ceremony, knelt down and wound her arms with a loving pressure about Grace.
“Oh, my dear! my dear! I have tried so hard to get home to tell you all about it myself, and it is dreadful to think that you should have had to hear it from someone else! But, Grace, dear Grace, don’t believe it all just at the first, because it might not be true, you know,” said Bertha, bringing her words out in a great hurry, and speaking of the hope to which she herself clung, yet without any previous intention of doing so; for both she and Edgar Bradgate had decided that it was not kind to let Grace indulge in any hope which had no chance of proving true.
“Bertha, Bertha, it can’t surely be true! It is too ghastly and horrible! Why, I have been expecting Tom every day since the snow went away, and now to be told that he will never come home at all—oh, it is too hard to bear!” wailed the invalid, clinging to the girl’s slight figure with the desperation of despair.
“Then keep on expecting him until we are quite sure,” whispered Bertha, in loving encouragement. “There can be no harm in hoping until there is no longer anything to hope for. Of course it was a kind thought of this—this gentleman to come and tell you the bad news, but on the whole it will be kinder not to insist on your believing it just yet.”
“I did not come solely to tell the bad news, but to assure the widow of my dear nephew that I would take care of her and her helpless children for the sake of the dear dead,” said the old man, with trembling tones, it is true, but with so much arrogance of manner, because of the favour he had it in his power to bestow, that Bertha was stung into impetuous speech.
“Grace will not be an object of charity, nor will she need that you should take care of her for the sake of her husband. I shall take care of her for her own sweet sake, and because, when my mother died, she came and took care of me,” she said, tumbling her words out in a great hurry, and getting very red in the face from indignation at what she deemed the horrible patronage in the old man’s manner.
He held up his hands in a meekly protesting fashion.
“Oh, my dear, you have a long life before you in which you may do kind acts to anyone you please, and lay up for yourself a harvest of blessedness for the years to come. But I have only a few years to live at the most, and there is no time for me to make amends for all the wrong things that I have done, but I want to gather just a little love for myself before my barren life comes to an end, so do not refuse to let me help at least in providing the necessary money to keep the home going.”
The note of wistful pleading in the old man’s tone at once melted Bertha’s resentment against him, and she gently guided him to a chair on the other side of the stove. “Sit down and rest a little; there will be plenty of time in which to decide what it is best to do when we are quite sure that Tom really died in that frozen-out camp. But just now Grace is tired, and must stay quiet for a while.”