Together David and the squire rose. It was clear that William had heard as much as he could endure. His hands twitched, his eyes were as wild as any lunatic's.
"It doesn't make any difference who I am," said David, steadily. "You are to remember that all the people know you did not take the communion set. You are to think of that all the time."
Again William began to weep, but in a different way.
"I cannot think of it," he sobbed. "God told me not to think of it. God told me to forgive him. I have forgiven him."
As the squire and David drove through the gate, William was kneeling once more among his cabbages. Sometimes he stopped and rubbed his head in a puzzled way, then his hands returned to caress the young plants.
Almost silently the two men drove back to Millerstown and up to the little white house on the mountain road. Standing before the door, David saw once more its littleness, its meanness. It seemed as though it could never have been altogether proof against the storms of winter. Looking back at his own great mansion among the trees he shivered. Imagination woke within him; he comprehended something of the lonely misery of poor William. It was a salutary though dreadful experience for David.
Alvin answered their knock at once. In a half-hearted, inefficient way he was trying to put the house into habitable condition. For the first time in his life he thought with respect of his father and of his father's work. His father could have applied the needed plaster and boards skillfully and quickly.
When Alvin saw who stood without he looked at them blankly. The difference between his worn clothes and David's fine apparel hurt him. He was always afraid of the squire. Together the three sat down on the porch. Here David was the spokesman. To him the squire listened with admiration and respect.
"Alvin, the communion service has been found."
Alvin looked at them more blankly than ever. The affair of the communion service belonged to the dim past; since he had thought of the communion service he had been away to school, and had been educated and jilted, and cruelly maltreated by Bevy Schnepp, and had become engaged once more. It was a long time before Alvin could remember the very close relation he bore to the communion service. When he remembered, his heart sank. He recalled clearly his father's trying, desperate appeal on Christmas Day so long ago. Had they come to make him pay for his father's theft?