'Yes, I forgive you. I am so sorry,' and in a lower whisper still, 'Please forgive poor Jack; he is gone far away. I shall never, never see him again, and it was all because he loved me. Please forgive him.'
'For your sake, yes,' was the reply, 'for your sake, and pray for me as I lie here alone. Your sister has tried to make me a better man. She was as an angel of God sent to drive out the evil spirits in me. My mother!—ah! my mother used to pray for me—and in this very room I have prayed at her knee. Once, in my fits of passion and rage, she told me of a king who like me had an evil spirit—Saul, yes, it must have been Saul—and she prayed God that one of His angels might be sent to me to drive it out. Two angels have come at last—you and your sister—and I shall never forget you. Kiss me on the forehead before you go—a seal of forgiveness, of pardon.'
Bryda rose and did as he asked her, and then without another word left the room.
Mr Barrett dropped her at the farm, where Betty received her, and, flinging her arms round this gentle sister, she said,—
'Oh, Betty! dear Bet! take me upstairs. I can bear no more.'
No, she could bear no more—overwrought, and ill in mind and body, Bryda lay down in her tent-bed in the upper chamber of Bishop's Farm; and Mrs Lambert, to her intense surprise and vexation, was obliged to look for someone else to supply Bryda's place, mend and clear starch her lace, and prepare dainty dishes for Mr Lambert's friends, attend her to the cathedral, and indulge all her whims.
It is never too late to mend, though, of all ugly weeds which grow unchecked in the human heart, selfishness is the hardest to pluck up, especially if for seventy years it has flourished unchecked.
Bryda lay in a state of feverish exhaustion on her bed for many weeks, tended with loving care by Betty, who did her best to divert her mind from sad thoughts.