'Hermie,' he cried, after spending a minute trying to find the reason for her curiously averted head, 'you did not write for mamma, Hermie?'
She turned to him then, her blue young eyes on fire.
'I did,' she said; 'it is time, more than time she came. If she does not come soon, you—we—we shall all be dead!'
'Child, child!' he said.
He had risen from his sofa and gone to the window, to look once more with aching eyes at his wretched lands. If this had been the green isle in the sea he had dreamed of making it, he would have sent long ago himself. But these desolate acres!
'Child,' he groaned, 'I couldn't let her come to this. I am only half a man—half a man. God left the manliness out of me when He made me, and gave me womanish ways instead. And I have never fought them down, as it must have been meant I should do. But I will begin again, I will work harder—things must take a turn, and then I can meet her, and she will not despise me. Child, God has no more awful punishment than when He lets those we love despise us. Send another letter, tell her not to come yet—not just yet. Let me have one more chance.'
Hermie was sobbing at his side, pulling at his arm, trying to urge him back to the sofa. She knew he was not talking to her, knew he was hardly aware she was there, but her sensitive spirit, leaping at his troubles with him, was bowed down with the knowledge and weight of them. How she loved this man—this grey-haired, blue-eyed man at her side! Hardly the love of daughter for father; her feelings for him had in them something of the passionate, protecting tenderness of a mother for a crippled child.
'Lie down,' she said, 'there—let me move these pillows; that is better. She must come—she should have come long ago. And I told her to be sure to come by the next boat. Now lie still; I am going to get your lunch.'
The exertion and emotion had tried him exceedingly. He lay still, still, his face to the wall; and now his mood brought a tear from under his eyelid. It was too late! She would have started! Ah, well, praise God for that! God who took these things out of our hands. She was coming—he might give up for a little time, and lie with his head on her breast; she who had always forgiven him would forgive him still and clasp him to her, and call him, 'Dear One.' Then all he would ask would be the happiness of dying before the world began again.
The happy tears rolled down his cheeks. Hermie, tip-toeing back with her tray, saw them, and was filled with dismay. What had she done by this interference?