“Do you know, you are a very good fellow?” he said. “You are very generous to me. So has Helen been. I cannot tell you what she has been to me all this winter. And I thank you very much for letting her be with me, for not urging her otherwise. You have made it all as easy for her as you can. You have been very unselfish, both of you. And I have been making it very difficult for her.”
Frank was a good deal moved. There was a very noble and a pathetic sincerity about this.
“I think you wrong yourself,” he said. “I am sure you wrong yourself. We have all tried to—well, to do our best. And we all three of us know that.”
But Mr. Challoner had more to say.
“I ask your forgiveness,” he said, simply, and his voice trembled a little.
“Ah, don’t do that,” said Frank.
They stood there together a moment longer, under the flecked sunlight filtering through the trees, suddenly brought close again, just as they had been in that dreadful hour when Helen’s weakness made them forget all else. But now the reconciliation went far deeper than it had gone before. Then they had joined hands in ministering to the physical suffering of one they both loved, but now they joined hands over an appreciation not of weakness but of strength. The bond between them was no longer a thing that could easily break. Poles apart as they still were, that golden thread could scarcely be snapped.
“I met Helen just now,” said Mr. Challoner at length. “She told me she had seen you, dear girl. She told me also the news from my son. Are you busy? Will you walk with me a little way?”
Frank turned at once, and they went on down the steep path towards the rectory.
“Have you seen Martin lately?” asked his father.