"Will you tell them—everything?" Gerald asked in a choked voice. "I want them to know—and, oh, father, don't look so unhappy! I will really try to be a better boy."
"I hope you will," Mr. Willis responded, with a deep sigh. "Think what a grief your conduct would have been to your dear mother if she had lived."
"Oh, I know! I know!" the boy cried distressfully; and, overcome afresh with grief and remorse, he rushed out of the studio, and ran upstairs to his own room.
Flinging himself on his knees by the bedside, he gave way to his sorrow. If his father had not been so kind, if he had reproached him and refused him forgiveness, he would not have been so brokenhearted as he was now. How good his father had been to him!
By-and-by he tried to pray. He remembered how Angel had once said to him, "When we do anything wrong, it's really against God we sin," and he prayed earnestly. "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight." As he prayed a sense of comfort stole into his sore heart; he felt that God had forgiven him.
When the supper bell rang he rose from his knees, and after bathing his tear-stained face and brushing his ruffled hair, went downstairs into the dining-room, where he found the others seated at table. Angel rose the minute he entered, and putting her arms around his neck, kissed him with trembling lips. He took her caress as an earnest of her unchanging love.
"Has father told you?" he whispered, noticing that she was very pale, and had evidently been crying.
"Yes," she answered.
"Everything? About my betting, and the money I stole from Mrs. Vallance?"
She nodded. Mr. Bailey, who was quietly eating his supper, now lifted his eyes from his plate, and beckoned to Gerald to take the chair next to him.