"Oh, I know! I know! my poor, lost boy! my Philip!" cried Sir Hugh, covering his pale face with his hands. "Is he dead?"
"No, dear father, and he may possibly recover. He is very penitent and sorrowful. He says he would have written to you long ago, if he had dared—that he was on the way home when he was taken ill—coming to entreat your forgiveness, and that if you will grant it to him now, he can die content."
"And he shall have it!" cried Sir Hugh, "for I too often erred through over-indulgence, and sometimes through over-severity. I will go to him at once. Get me my cloak, my hat!"
"You will not need them," said the Doctor, smiling; "Philip is in his old room."
When the father and brother reached the bedside of the young sailor, they found that he had fallen asleep. He looked very ill; his sun-burnt face had grown almost fair in his long sickness—his sunken cheeks were slightly flushed with fever, and his long hair was scattered in disorder over the pillow.
As Sir Hugh gazed upon the sad face before him, he seemed to see in it the face of his dear dead wife, and what was more strange, that of his first-born son who died in early childhood.
When at length the young man opened his eyes, and saw his father bending over him, he seemed frightened and turned away his face. But the old man clasped him tenderly in his arms, as though he had been a child, and murmured with tears, "Philip, my son, my darling boy! I thank God, who has given you back to me!"
"Oh, father! do you indeed forgive me for all, all?" cried poor Philip, winding his thin arms about his old father's neck.
"As I hope to be forgiven," said Sir Hugh, solemnly.