“Yes, father, yes,” Agnes said, as she looked into his face, “if there is anything to forgive, I forgive it without asking to know what it is. We will be father and child again, and the old house at the mill shall be our home. I ask nothing further than that you love me, and that you have come back to me, never to go away again. You were always so good, and I love you so much, that I believe whatever you did was for the best; I don’t want to know what it is. Ned and his mother can bear testimony to how tenderly I have always cherished your memory, and how much I missed you, though I believed you were dead. The hope that you were alive was never in my mind for a moment, or I should have known you when you were so kind to me in Fairview, after Ned and his mother had moved away, and when I was lonely and friendless. I wondered then why I was not afraid of you, for you were stern and fierce, but I know now; I could not be afraid of my father, though I did not know him. I am content that we commence our lives anew, never to refer to events beyond this night. I am more than content; I am happy, much happier than I have ever been before, or ever expected to be.”
They were walking up and down the room now, locked in each other’s arms, and I thought with Agnes that I would freely accept his explanation without hearing it; I was so certain he was a good and honest man. As my mother looked at them timidly, I thought she was wondering if her wanderer would ever return, and if she would ever be as happy as Agnes. As if convinced that it would never come to pass, she went softly from the room, still hiding her eyes, and we heard her sobbing in the next room. Barker was very much affected, and when Agnes went out to speak to her, he kept saying, “It’s too bad,” until she returned. As for me, I could only stare at him, and look out of the window into the darkness.
“We will agree then,” Barker said, when Agnes was again seated beside him, “that the book of the past, with all its unhappy secrets, shall be closed forever, and we will only open the new leaves, which I hope we can contemplate with pleasure. But before dismissing the past forever, never to recall it again, I want to say that I have watched over you constantly for the past eight years, when I first learned you were living in Fairview. Let me say this to excuse my other neglect, and that you may know how honest my affection for you has always been. You may recollect that you once gave Ned my picture in appreciation of his friendship, and he sent it to me by Jo. He showed it to me one night when I had almost resolved to look for you at Bradford, no difference what the consequence might be, and though I recognized it at once, I tossed it to one side with a glance, though I was so much agitated that soon after I left the room to hide it. When I returned, and inquired as carelessly as I could whom the picture represented, Jo replied that it was the father of the little school-teacher, Agnes Deming and that he had been drowned at sea. By degrees I learned when you came, how you looked, and where you lived; and how often I have made them tell the story without suspecting; how often I have set them to talking of pretty Agnes, and when they told how much she mourned her father, I went away and walked in the woods until I was calm again. Since then I have been near you a hundred times when you did not know it, and a hundred times when you did. Very often I have stolen up to your window in the night, and seeing you were safe and well, crept back through the woods to my desolate home, waiting for this night to come. Once when I looked into your window—it was at Ned’s father’s house, in the country—I saw you kneel, and I heard you ask blessings on my head, though you supposed I was in heaven. It has been a long time to wait, and I have suffered a great deal, but I am satisfied; I believe I shall be happier that it came about as it did.”
I noticed that they at once put into execution their resolve to bury the past in the lonely grave out in Smoky Hill, around which we had all stood two months before, for during the remainder of the night nothing was talked of but the happy future; the to-morrow of their lives, instead of the yesterday.
When I had sufficiently recovered myself to congratulate them, we laughed merrily over my attempt to frighten Agnes, and Barker started to explain how he happened to come when he did, but recollecting his resolve to speak no more of that, he waived it off, and told instead how the house at the mill should be remodelled and refurnished, and the heavy shutters taken down; how the people who passed that way would wonder at the change, and how they should be told that the owner had been blessed through the mercy of God.
“I shall remain plain Damon Barker,” he said. “It is a good name, and has never been disgraced, and I shall keep it. It is as good as any other, and it would be confusing to change.”
I remained with them until long after midnight, and when I went softly up the stairs to my room, I could hear them talking in low tones. During the night, as I restlessly tossed about, I heard the hum of their voices, and when I came down early in the morning after a disturbed rest, I found Agnes quietly sleeping, with her head on her father’s knee, but Damon Barker’s eyes were wide open, and there was a smile on his face, and I thought he had grown younger during the night.
I can never forget the loneliness which came over me when they drove away in the morning, waving their adieus, nor the coldness which came into the house, and would not be driven out. I am certain we lighted fires that night, though they had not been necessary before, and when Martin came down to sit with us, he shivered as he entered the room, and rubbed his hands to warm them.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BARKER’S STORY.
MY first recollection is of being on board a sailing ship at sea, and by degrees I learned that my mother was dead; that the rough commander who was dreaded and feared by everyone else as well as myself was my father, and that I was kept with him on the ship because I was less troublesome there than anywhere else, and because he desired to look after my education in person, which began when I was five years old.