“Mother, I wonder you cannot guess. Do you not know that it was through Owen’s—Owen’s—well, mother, I must tell you—it was partly through Owen that little David was killed.”
Mother’s face grew very white, her eyes flashed, she left my side, and went over to the fire. “Gwladys, how dare you—yes, how dare you even utter such falsehoods. Did Owen take the child to the eye-well? Did Owen put the wicked bull in the field? How can you say such things of your brother?”
“They are no falsehoods, mother. If Owen had kept his promise to poor Mrs Jones, and had the old shaft filled up, nothing would have happened to the baby.”
“It is useless talking to you, Gwladys. I would rather you said no more. Ever since his return you have been unjust to Owen.”
Mother, seating herself in the arm-chair by the fire, turned her back on me, and I lay down on the sofa. I was very tired—tired with the tension of my first day of real grief; but I could not sleep, my heart ached too badly. Hitherto, during the long hours that intervened since the early morning, I had, as I said, hardly thought of Owen; but now mother herself could scarcely ponder on his name, or his memory, more anxiously than I did. As I thought, it seemed to me that I, too, was guilty of the baby’s death. I had turned my heart from my brother—a thousand things that I might have done I left undone. David had asked me to help him, to aid him. I had not done so. Never once since his return had I strengthened his hands in any right way. On the contrary, had I not weakened them? And much was possible for me. In many ways—too many and small to mention—I might have kept Owen’s feet in the narrow path of duty. In this particular instance might I not have reminded him of the old shaft, and so have saved little David’s life?
Yes, mother was right. I was unjust to Owen; but I saw now that I had always been unjust to him. In the old days when I thought him perfect as well as now. I was a child then, and knew no better. Now I was a woman. Oh! how bitterly unjust was I to my brother now. Loudly, sternly did my heart reproach me, until, in my misery and self-condemnation, I felt that David and Owen could never love me again. Through the mists and clouds of my own self-accusation, Owen’s true character began to dawn on me. Never wholly good, or wholly bad, had Owen been. Affectionate, generous, enthusiastic, was one side of that heart—selfish and vain the other. Carefully had mother and I nurtured that vanity—and the fall had come. All his life he had been earning these wages; at last they had been paid to him—paid to him in full and terrible measure. The wages of sin is death. Little David was dead.
Owen’s face, as I had seen it this morning, returned to me. His sharp cry of bitter agony rang again in my ears. Yes, the fruit of all that easy, careless life had appeared. I saw my brother as he was; but, strange as it may seem, at last, with all this knowledge, with the veil torn away from my eyes, I longed, prayed for, and loved him as I had never done before. I think I did this because also from my heart of hearts rose the bitter supplication—
“Have mercy on my sin too. Thou who knowest all men—Thou knowest well that my sin is as deep and black as his.”
The clock struck twelve, and mother, who had been sitting silent, and who I hoped was asleep, moved restlessly, turned round, and addressed me.
“Has not David gone to look for Owen?”