"How does one pay another for lying to him, cheating him, and—and playing with him as though he were an idiot or a child?"
"Why did he do it, Master Farwell, why did he do it?"
"Because——" But for very shame Farwell hesitated. "It makes no difference," he muttered. "I'm no fool and Boswell shall find it out."
"He has told me—the story." Priscilla still stayed the straining figure. "All his life he has given and given to you all that was in his power to give. He is the noblest man I ever knew, the gentlest and kindest, and I never knew a man could love another as he has loved you. What have you given to him—really? The smiles and jokes of the days long ago that were heavenly to him—what did they cost you? He gave, and gave his heart's best; he lied and cheated you, that you might have—some sort of peace in—in Kenmore. Oh! if you only knew how he has hated it all, how he has struggled to keep up the play even when he was so weary that the soul of him almost gave out! And now you come to—to pay him with hate and revenge when you have the only thing he wants in all the world at your command—to give him!"
The impassioned words fell into silence; the uplifted face with its shining eyes, mist-wet and indignant, aroused Farwell at last.
"And that is?" he asked.
"Yourself! your faith! See, that is his light. He is waiting—for me, because, since you sent me to him, he has been kind, heavenly kind to me, for your sake! Everything is, has always been, for your sake. Go to him, Master Farwell—go alone. I will come by and by; not now. Pay him for all he has done for you—all these lonely years!"
Farwell no longer struggled. He took Priscilla's hands in a long, close clasp.
"What a woman you have become, Priscilla Glenn! Thank you."
Without a word more they parted: Farwell to go to the reckoning; Priscilla to walk in the mist for a bit longer.