"Well, well, Frank, it can not be helped now! Since it is all over, why not let it go without troubling yourself with vain regrets?"
"Those are not vain regrets, Eleanor," said the husband, "which purify the soul. My father has been spared the agony of remorse for the one great error of his life, by a merciful Providence which has made the sad past oblivious to him; but my heart would be hardened indeed, if it should cease to feel an intense sorrow for the wrongs committed against the patient and sainted one."
Mrs. Halberg was touched by her husband's unfeigned grief. He had never spoken so fully to her before, on a subject which, by common consent, all the family had avoided, and she knew not until now how weighty had been the burden of his secret repinings. Before the world he was unbending and reserved; but now as he sat in the solitude of his chamber, with only his wife's eye upon him, save that of the Omniscient, the proud man yielded to a long pent-up emotion, and wept like a child. "Eleanor," said he, as he felt the tears from other eyes mingling with his own, "tell me that if it is ever in our power to make restitution for the sins of other years, you will aid me with all your power, even if it were to our own pecuniary loss?"
The wife placed his hand fondly upon the heart that was beating for him so truly, and kissing him tenderly, murmured, "My husband, I promise!"
"If," continued he, "it should prove upon thorough investigation—which has been already too long delayed—that the child of my sister was spared, and is even now living, will you take her to your home and cherish her as one of your own children, so that she may feel no want of sympathy and love?"
With the hand still upon the life-spring, the affectionate wife earnestly answered, "My husband, I will. But why," said she, after a moment's hesitation, "do you doubt the truth of the report, that you have hitherto considered credible?"
"It never occurred to me," said Mr. Halberg, "that it might be false, until to-night; but Eleanor, presentiments come sometimes upon us with all the force of a certain conviction, and my conscience will never be easy until I, make some effort to find out, beyond the shadow of doubt, whether my sister's child is wandering upon the earth, yearning for kindred and home, or is gathered to the home which is brighter than any this world can afford. What first awakened these thoughts within me, was the sight of a gipsy woman to-day. She stopped me in the street to beg a few pennies, and by the hand she held a gentle little creature of five or six years old, which I was confident could not be her own. Visions of a bereaved and mourning family, and of the future of the delicate child, troubled me, and the feeling that one bound to me by a dearer tie than that of humanity, might be roaming amid the vicious and low, smote me with such cruel misery that I have not since been able to regain my wonted calmness, and the coming of this beauteous child, so like my sister, has excited my anxieties and fears still more."
"I doubt not but that it is all a fantasy of the imagination, Frank. You had better take a composing draught, and to-morrow will find you more cheerful," said the wife.
"I know of none more soothing," replied Mr. Halberg, as he prepared for his night's repose, "than a spirit at peace with God and man."