"But we do," replied Olive.
"Yes, but it's all right. I am not an easy-going optimist, as you know, and I don't see how what I have said can be true. But it is. It helps me to bear my own sorrow to say it. God bless you, my little girl."
He went back to the hotel, leaving father and daughter together. In spite of the sad news he brought, in spite of the fact of his going away, his words comforted her. There is always help in the words and presence of a good man.
"If I were sure I did right," she said presently.
"You could have done nothing else," said John Castlemaine.
She did not answer for some time, neither did she turn to the letters and papers which Mr. Sackville had laid by her side. She was thinking of the words which Leicester had spoken to her. She remembered how he had said that if there was a God, He had used her as a means of his salvation, and she wondered how much truth there was in what he had said. Even yet she did not understand her own heart; all she knew was that since she had read the letter which had destroyed her hopes, life had been a great pain. Anger, pride, disappointment, and love had each in their turn fought for the mastery, and her heart had seemed to be broken in the struggle.
"No," she said, "I suppose I could not."
"We see what his reformation was worth," said John Castlemaine. "Evidently he was playing you false all the time."
Olive was silent.
"Now honestly, Olive," said her father, "suppose you had a chance of altering the past, what would you do? Would you marry him?"