Love's Golden Thread

by E. C. Kenyon

"What a wonderful girl!" he muttered aloud, when she was gone, closing the door softly behind her. "I admire her exceedingly! And I have hurt her feelings! She has gone away to cry! What a stupid blunderer I am! How brutal of me to wound her so! I'm sure I'm very sorry. I'll write her a message." He looked round for pen, ink, and paper, and, having found some, wrote one line only:

"Forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. Norman Sinclair."

Having folded the paper, he addressed it to Miss Anderson, and laid it conspicuously upon the table, and then very quietly left the house.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GREAT RENUNCIATION.

And things can never go badly wrong

If the heart be true and the love be strong;

For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain

Will be changed by the love into sunshine again.

G. MACDONALD.

Doris was quite touched when, on coming down to tea, she found Mr. Sinclair's communication upon the table. He could scarcely have written anything which appealed to her more. If he had given in to her arguments, and had said she was right and he was wrong, her feelings about him would have been contemptuous: and if, on the other hand, he had persisted in condemning her work she would have considered him unreasonable. As it was, however, she could not feel either contempt or anger for the man who simply asked for her forgiveness; and she thought better of him for showing in that way that he was sorry for the pain his arguments, and indeed his whole visit had caused her.

She sat and thought about him a long time. How different he was from Bernard! Not so loving and lovable, not nearly so loving and lovable, and yet there was a grandeur about him, and an air of distinction which Bernard did not possess. "I wish I could see his paintings!" she said to herself. "Alice used to rave about them. But I did not take much notice. I thought her simply infatuated with her brother; she thought no one was his equal. Perhaps if I had a brother I might have felt like that about him." And so, on and on went her thoughts, always about Norman Sinclair, except when they flew for a moment or two to Bernard, though always reverting quickly again to the artist. Mr. Sinclair was the greater man of the two, there was no doubt about that, and her first feeling of annoyance at its being so had changed into esteem for him; yet she loved Bernard all the more because he did not stand on a pedestal, he was on her own level--or it might be even a little lower--which gave her such a delicious sense of motherhood towards him. The latter feeling no doubt made her so determined that he should have his own again, even if she had to wear herself out in winning it for him. Bernard should not suffer loss, if by any exertion on her part it could be averted.

"I do hope, miss," said Mrs. Austin, coming in at last, unbidden, to clear away the tea-things, "I do hope that gentleman hasn't gone and worried you with his tall talk! It is all very fine to tell other folks to give up their businesses, but would he give up his own, I wonder? And will he ensure your having a good income if you throw away the one you are earning?"

Doris rose.