The music died, the violin slipped from beneath his chin, the bow dropped and his head fell on his arms. Then he felt a touch on his shoulder and heard the whisper: "Hugh! Hugh!"
"Jessica!" he cried, and sprang to his feet.
In those three words all was asked and answered. It did not need the low cry with which she flung herself on her knees beside the rough-hewn steps, or the broken sentences with which he poured out the fear and hope that he had battled with.
"I have watched every day and listened every night," she said. "I knew that you would come—that you must come back!"
"If I had never gone, Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Then I might have seen my father! But I didn't know—"
She clasped her hands together. "You know now—you remember it all?"
He shook his head. "I have been there"—he pointed to the hillside—"and I have guessed who it is that lies there. I know I sinned against him and against myself, and left him to die unforgiving. That is what the statue said to me—as he must have said: I am no more worthy to be called thy son."
"Ah," she cried, "he knew and he forgave you, Hugh. His last thought was of your coming! That is why I carved the figure there."
"You carved it?" he exclaimed. She bent her forehead to his hands, as they clasped her own.
"The prodigal is yourself," she said. "I modelled it once before when you came back to him, in the time you have forgotten. But I destroyed it,"—the words were very low now—"on my wedding-day."