"That is just Isabel's nonsense," interpolated Annabel. "I haven't patience with her. As if Frank Wildacre deserved to be forgiven! And even if he did—which he doesn't—it isn't the time to bother poor Reggie about it now."
"I can never forgive him," I repeated.
"I didn't say you could, old man," replied Arthur: "neither does Lady Chayford. She only says that this might be your one opportunity of doing so: not that you could necessarily avail yourself of that opportunity. As I take it, she does not suggest to you to forgive Frank, but to put yourself in a position where it might become possible for you to forgive him. There is a difference between the two, I think."
"I can never forgive him," I repeated doggedly. And we left it at that.
Annabel pressed me to go back to Lowchester with her and Arthur: but I declined to do that, or even to let them remain at Restham with me. I wanted to be alone with my sorrow. And as they had their hands full of all kinds of work connected with the war and could ill be spared from Lowchester, they let me have my way.
I wrote a short note to Isabel Chayford thanking her for her sympathy in my overwhelming sorrow: and saying that I found it impossible to grant Frank's wish and to let him come to Restham. And then I sat alone in my house that was left unto me desolate, and mourned my dead.
But was I alone?
Through the long sunless days and the dreary sleepless nights that Voice kept ringing in my ears—
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock!"
And I knew that the Hand that knocked was pierced; yet I steeled my soul against that incessant pleading, and kept fast shut the door.