“Love you, Louis! love you, dear boy!” he replied; “you have had reason to doubt it, but I have always loved you. I forgive you from my heart, but you have something to forgive in me. I have not been as kind to you as I might have been.”
“I am very sorry I spoke so unkindly of you this morning, Hamilton,” sobbed Louis, laying his wet cheek on Hamilton's shoulder. “I was cross, and didn't think of what I was saying.”
“Don't think any more about it,” said Hamilton, affectionately; “lie down, and tell me quietly how you came to be on that wall just now.”
“I was standing at the wooden door,” said Louis, “when Sally Simmons told me that she had seen my bag on the great hawthorn-tree, by the wall on the other side. And when I asked her how it got there, she said, she supposed I knew, but it was too high for her to reach; and if I didn't get it, the doctor would find me out. At first, I thought I wouldn't go,” said Louis, hesitating; “and then I was afraid I should be getting into a scrape—I am sometimes so unfortunate—and so I went across the lane, and got over the gate, and went into the yard to see if it were there. And there it was, Hamilton, with some apples in it, too, hanging partly, and partly lying, near the top of the tree; it was so high that I was obliged to get upon the cow-house roof, and as the cow-house was on the wrong side, I was obliged to get on the wall to read it. And I was pulling it off when you first saw me, and then—I was afraid, and as I was rather over-reaching myself, I tried to get down in a hurry, and fell down. I think the tree broke my fall; but I don't know how it was, for I hardly understood any thing, even when you came up.”
“You had better have let it alone,” said Reginald.
“What were you doing at the gate?” said Hamilton; “keeping watch?”
“One of them asked me,” replied Louis.
Hamilton shook his head.
“Have you any idea how your bag came there?”
“Please don't ask me any questions about that, Hamilton. Will you not believe I am innocent?”