“I don’t blame you one bit for being mad at me——I should think you would be. I don’t know what I’m going to say to you either, but I’ve come to beg your forgiveness,” she stammered.
Nathan Hornby did not speak, but waited coldly for her to continue. There was plainly no help offered her.
“I—I can’t explain, Uncle Nate—I am going to call you so—you—you shall not put me away. I have come for your forgiveness and—and I’m going to stay till I get it. I—I can’t explain—there—there are things in life that we can’t explain, but I’m innocent of this stuck-up business you think I’ve had. I—I’ve loved you and Aunt Susan. Oh, Uncle Nate, I’ve loved her better than I ever did my own mother,” she ended with a sob.
There was the voice of honesty in what she said, but Nathan remembered his wrongs.
“If that’s so, why didn’t you come t’ see ’er?” he said. “If you loved ’er, why’d you let ’er go down to ’er grave a pinin’ for you? She looked for you till she was crazy ’most, an’ she never got a decent word out of you, nor a decent visit neither. If you loved ’er, what’d you act that way for?”
The memory of that last day, when his wife had yearned so pitifully for this girl, arose before him as he stood there, and shook his faith in the honesty of Elizabeth’s purposes in spite of the earnestness of her manner.
“That is the one thing I cannot explain, Uncle Nate,” Elizabeth answered. “I—I was all ready to come that day and—and—then I couldn’t.”
She buried her face in her hands at the memory of it and burst into tears.
“Is it true that Hunter won’t take you anywhere?” he asked pointedly.
“You have been listening to the Cranes,” she answered.