'I said something about Lomax spiting me, but he wouldn't listen to that.'
'Oh no,' said Jessie, who readily understood that her father would never admit that explanation of the affair. 'Oh, Cecil, I am so sorry, so very sorry!'
'If I had really been idle,' said Cecil, raising up his tear-wet face, more crimson than ever from its sojourn in the box, 'then I shouldn't care—I mean, it would only be fair that I should be served out for it; but when I haven't—when I have tried all this year—oh!—--' and he was nearly choked by the sobs which, in his desire to be manly, he was struggling to repress.
Jessie believed him entirely, and was grieved to the very heart. 'I am so sorry,' she repeated. 'But, dear Cecil, God knows; He sees you have been trying; He isn't angry with you.'
'Then why does He let this happen?' said Cecil fiercely.
Jessie was startled and shocked, and had no answer ready. 'I don't know,' she said at last, through her tears; 'I can't tell why, but He is so good—oh, He is so good!—perhaps it will all come right still. I will ask Him; and you will, won't you, Cecil? Isn't there something in the Bible about its being acceptable with God, if we do well and suffer for it?'
'Yes; but I'm not suffering because I've done well, but because I'm supposed to have done ill,' said Cecil gloomily. 'There's no good talking, Jessie; you'd better go to bed.'
'Perhaps I had,' said Jessie, a sudden thought striking her as she heard her father's voice in the passage below; 'but I can't bear to leave you, Cecil. I am so sorry, and I do love you so!'
He half returned her tender, sorrowful hug; and then she ran away, but not straight to her own room. She darted down one flight of stairs, and caught hold of her father, who had come in from the practice, and had been washing his hands before going to supper.
'Father,' she said breathlessly, 'please let me say it: Cecil has been working—he has indeed. Oh, I am sure you would believe it if you had heard what he said to me just now!'