“Have you a father?”
“I don’t know. I think he is dead, too, for I was enough to break his heart, and I have never heard of him since. I hadn’t any brothers or sisters when I came away. I’m all that’s left, and now there is a longing coming over me to hunt up my father again before he dies, that is––if––he––isn’t––already––gone!”
It was no use. Fred Sanders, the wild, reckless youth, who had passed through many a scene that would have made a man shudder, suddenly put his hands to his face, and his whole frame shook with 217 emotion. The memories of his early childhood came back to him, and he saw again the forms of those who loved him so fondly, and whose affection he returned with such piercing ingratitude. Conscience had slept for many years, but the gentle words of Inez had awakened its voice again. The goodness of the girl, who was already like a loved sister to Sanders, had stirred up the better part of his nature, and he looked upon himself with a shudder, that one so young as he should have committed his many transgressions.
No wonder that he felt so pressed down that he cried out in the bitterness of his spirit that heaven was shut from him. It was hard for Inez to keep back the sympathizing tears herself when she witnessed the overwhelming grief of the strong youth.
The latter sat silent for some minutes, holding his face partly averted, as if ashamed of this evidence of weakness––an evidence which it is safe to say he had not shown for years, young as he was.
Ah, there were memories that had slumbered long which came crowding upon the boy––memories whose import no one on board that strange craft could suspect but himself, and whose work was soon to appear in a form and with a force that neither Inez Hawthorne nor Mate Storms so much as dreamed of.