“Is he very, very angry?” asked poor Kennedy.
“He has forgiven all, dear,” she said, kissing his forehead. “It was all very dreadful,”—and a cold shiver ran over her—“but none of us will ever allude to it again. Banish it from your thoughts, Eddy; we will leave Camford as soon as you can be moved.”
She went to fetch her father, and as he came in and leant fondly over his son’s sick-bed, and grasped warmly his unwounded hand, tears of afflicting memory coursed each other fast down the old man’s cheeks. He had been hard, too hard upon Edward; perhaps his severity had driven him of late into such bad courses, and to the brink of such an awful and disgraceful end; perhaps if he had been kinder, gentler, more sympathising for this first offence, he might have been saved the anguish of driving his poor boy to lower and wilder depths of sin and sorrow. It was all over now; and amid the apparent wreck of all his hopes, even after the death-blows which recent events had dealt to his old pride in his noble child, he yet regarded him as he lay there—wounded and in such a way—with all the pity of a Christian’s forgiveness, with all the fondness of a father’s love.
“Oh, father, I have suffered unspeakably. If God ever raises me to health and strength again, I vow with all my heart to serve Him as I have never done before.”
“Yes, Edward, I trust and believe it; think no more of the past; let the dead bury their dead. The golden present is before you, and you will have two friends who never desert the brave man—your Maker and yourself.”
A silence followed, and then Eva said, “I have just seen Dr Leesby, Eddy, and he says that if you are now quite yourself, and the light-headedness has ceased, you may be moved on Monday.”
“And to-day is?—I have lost all count of time.”
“To-day is Saturday. Won’t it be charming, dear, to find ourselves once more at home; quietly at home, with no one but ourselves, and our own love to make us happy.”
“And what am I to do, Eva?”
“Hush, Eddy; sufficient for the day—”