"Well," said the poor fellow, sighing restlessly, "out with it, Giles."
"Your father began life by running away from home."
"Oh, I know that."
"You do?"
"Yes, my dear father told it to me some weeks before he died, but I did not like it, I wished to dismiss it from my thoughts."
"Indeed! but will you try to remember now, how he told it to you and what he said."
"It was very simple. Though now I come to think of it, with this new light thrown upon it—Yes; he did put it very oddly, very strangely, so that I did not like the affair, or to think of it. He said that as there was now some intercourse between us and Melcombe, a place that he had not gone near for so very many years, it was almost certain, that, sooner or later, I should hear something concerning himself that would surprise me. It was singular that I had not heard it already. I did not like to hear him talk in his usual pious way of such an occurrence; for though of course we know that all things are overruled for good to those who love God——"
"Well?" said Brandon, when he paused to ponder.
"Well," repeated Valentine, "for all that, and though he referred to that very text, I did not like to hear him say that he blessed God he had been led to do it; and that, if ever I heard of it, I was to remember that he thought of it with gratitude."
Saying this, he turned over the pages again. "But there is nothing of that here," he said, "how did you discover it?"