“As to the final words of your letter—one of my earliest recollections is that of my little hands being held together by one whom you lost too soon in life. Had your mother lived your career might have been different. What I was taught as my little hands were held together, I still repeat: ‘As we forgive them that trespass against us.’ Yes. Some day I hope to give you in the flesh that which I give you in spirit now—my hand.”
Six more years had passed before a broad-shouldered, bronzed, and bearded man—partner in the firm of Leslie and Vine, Singapore and Penang—grasped John Van Heldre’s hand, and asked him a question to which the old merchant replied: “Yes, all is forgiven and forgotten now. If you can win her: yes.”
But the days glided on and the question was not asked. Uncle Harry was constantly on the beach or down on the rocks with the two little prattling children of Duncan Leslie and his wife, and Uncle Luke, who seemed much the same, was rather disposed to be jealous of the favour in which the returned wanderer stood; but he indulged in a pleasant smile now and then, when he was not seen, and had taken to a habit of stopping his nephew on the beach at unexpected times, and apparently for no reason whatever.
The question was not asked, for Aunt Marguerite, who had taken to her bed for the past year, was evidently fading fast. As Dr Knatchbull said, she had been dying for months, and it was the state of her health which brought her nephew back to England, to find his old sins forgotten or forgiven, a year sooner than he had intended.
By slow degrees the vitality had passed from the old woman step by step, till the brain alone remained bright and clear. She was as exacting as ever, and insisted upon her bed being draped with flowers and lace and silk, and her one gratification was to be propped up, with a fan in one nerveless hand and a scent-bottle in the other, listening to the reading of some old page of French history, over which she smiled and softly nodded her head.
One day Harry was down near the harbour talking to Poll Perrow, whose society he often affected, to the old woman’s great delight, when Madelaine Van Heldre came to him hastily.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked excitedly.
She bowed her head, and for the moment could not speak.
“Aunt Marguerite?”