“Potter, I want you to stay with us and hear what I have to say,” he called to me.
A little moment of silence followed in which his spirit seemed to be breaking its fetters.
“Mary, I have sinned against you,” he said. “It was your right to know long since what I have now to tell you. But I was a coward. I loved you and feared to lose your love, and so I kept you from knowing the truth about me. Then came Gwendolyn, and the lovelier she grew the more cowardly I became. I hadn't the heart to tell either of you what I now must tell, that I went to prison long ago for a crime. It was not a very bad crime, but bad enough to disgrace you.”
In a flash the thought came to me that he was not going to tell the whole' truth; he would protect his father's good name.
Mrs. Norris put her arm about her husband's neck and kissed him tenderly. “My love,” said she, “I knew all that years ago, but for fear of hurting you I've never spoken of it. Long, long ago I knew all about your trouble.”
His mother rose from the bed where she had been calmly sitting with bowed head and tearful eyes.
“Not all,” said she. “You do not know that he took my husband's sin upon him, and that all these years he has been suffering in silence for the sake of another. I am sure there is no greater saint in heaven than this man.”
“Oh, Whitfield! Why didn't you let me help you?” said his wife, as she sank to her knees beside him.
The scene had suddenly become too sacred for any words of mine.
Not one of us spoke for a while, but there was something above all words in the silence. It was feebly expressed at length in these of Norris, and I like to recall them when I begin to feel a bit cynical: