'Yes, and we in Bristol have all been guilty in the matter. Poor George Catcott is racked by self-reproach, and well he may be, well may I be. He was starving and half-mad, that last letter to Catcott shows. We should have sent someone to him, poor, poor boy. I shall find it hard to forgive myself, I know that. And in that letter he said "I am no Christian—"'
Mr Barrett's voice was choked with emotion, and, unable to say another word, he went hastily down the lane, and very soon his horse's feet and the wheels of his high gig were heard rattling on the highroad beyond.
'Oh, Bryda, don't fret,' Betty said, as poor Bryda covered her face with her hands.
'I would like to be alone,' Bryda replied. 'Leave me, dear, just a little while. Come back for me, but leave me now.'
Betty obeyed, and Bryda was left alone once more to face the great mystery of death.
'Yes,' she thought, 'he was mad. He could not be taken to account for his actions. How his eyes flamed, as if a fire burned in their depths. How he would fall into silence all of a sudden. How he would burst out into wild rage, and then how gentle and kind he could be. How gentle to me that last night when he came to tell me about Jack.' Then Bryda looked up into the clear sky above her head, as if to seek an answer to her question there, as if there she could solve this mystery.
And although not in words, there came to her soul a great overpowering sense of the Love of God; and in that Love alone we can find the key which opens out the boundlessness of His mercy.
Like as a father pities! When man is pitiless and forgetful, when man judges with a hard judgment, the All-loving One remembers our frame, and in His love and in His pity redeems and pardons.