His face now showed compassion. He stooped and kissed her cheek. And it seemed to me at that moment that she could not be gladder than I.
“Agnes,” he said, “can you forgive me?”
“He was only a stock-rider,” she murmured, as if to herself, “but he was well-born. I loved him. You were angry. I went away with him in the night ... far away to the north. God was good—” Here she brushed her lips tenderly across the curls of the child. “Then the drought came and sickness fell and... death... and I was alone with my baby—”
His lips trembled and his hand was hurting my arm, though he knew it not.
“Where could I go?” she continued.
Glenn answered pleadingly now: “To your unworthy brother, God bless you and forgive me, dear!—though even here at Winnanbar there is drought and famine and the cattle die.”
“But my little one shall live!” she cried joyfully. That night Glenn of Winnanbar was a happy man, for rain fell on the land, and he held his sister’s child in his arms.
THE PLANTER’S WIFE
I