“There’s nothing to tell.” He released her hand roughly. “You musn’t touch me,” he added harshly. “Go.”
“You needn’t go, my dear,” said her father quickly. “Indeed, I think, perhaps—”
“Is your Helen very poor?” quietly asked the little girl, possessing herself of his hand again, “because if she is she can have”—she looked over at the pile of toys—“Well, I’ll see. I’ll give her lots of things, and—”
“What’s this?” broke out the younger man harshly, extending his hand with the letter in it toward the other.
“It is a letter to you from our father.”
“And you kept it from me?” cried the other.
“Read it,” said William Carstairs.
With trembling hands “Crackerjack” tore it open. It was a message of love and forgiveness penned by a dying hand.
“If I had had this then I might have been a different man,” said the poor wretch.
“There is another paper under it, or there should be, in the same drawer,” went on William Carstairs, imperturbably. “Perhaps you would better read that.”