“You are profane.”
“No! only I am not afraid to bring God's truth into all the circumstances of life, and to judge them by it. I believe,—if Christ came into the world to forgive sinners, we ought to forgive them too.”
Thus far I said—not thinking it just towards Max that I should plead merely for pity to be shewn to him or to me who loved him; but because it was the right and the truth, and as such, both for Max's honour and mine, I strove to put it clearly before my father. And then I gave way, pleading only as a daughter with her father, that he should blot out the past, and not for the sake of one long dead and gone break the heart of his living child.
“Harry would not wish it—I am sure he would not. If Harry has gone where he, too, may find mercy for his many sins, I know that he has long ago forgiven my dear Max.” My father, muttering something about “strange theology,” sat thoughtful. It was some time before he spoke again.
“There is one point of the subject you omit entirely. What will the world say? I, a clergyman, to sanction the marriage of my daughter with the man who took the life of my son? It is not possible.”
Then I grew bold:—“So, it is not the law of God, or justice, or nature, that keeps us asunder—but the world? Father, you have no right to part Max and me for fear of the world.”
When it was said, I repented myself of this. But it was too late. All his former hardness returned as he said:—
“I am aware that I have no legal right to forbid your marriage. You are of age: you may act, as you have all along acted, in defiance of your father.”
Never in defiance, nor even in secret disobedience and I reminded him how all things had been carried on—open and plain—from first to last; how patiently we had waited, and how, if Max were well and prosperous, I might still have said, “We will wait a little longer. Now—”
“Well, and now?”