‘Who told you that?’
‘I think a great deal about you. That is all you have left me.’
‘I’ve been a brute, Wilfrid. But you’ll forgive me, I know.’
‘With all my heart, if you’ll only put it in my power to serve you. Come, trust me, Charley, and tell me all about it. I shall not betray you.’
‘I’m not afraid of that,’ he answered, and sunk into silence once more.
I look to myself presumptuous and priggish in the memory. But I did mean truly by him. I began to question him, and by slow degrees, in broken hints, and in jets of reply, drew from him the facts. When at length he saw that I understood, he burst into tears, hid his face in his hands, and rocked himself to and fro.
‘Charley! Charley! don’t give in like that,’ I cried. ‘Be as sorry as you like; but don’t go on as if there was no help. Who has not failed and been forgiven—in one way if not in another?’
‘Who is there to forgive me? My father would not. And if he would, what difference would it make? I have done it all the same.’
‘But God, Charley—’ I suggested, hesitating.
‘What of him? If he should choose to pass a thing by and say nothing about it, that doesn’t undo it. It’s all nonsense. God himself can’t make it that I didn’t do what I did do.’