"Grumble on, grumble on, my best beloved," Katherine murmured, while her finger-tips traveled softly over his palm.
"Verily and indeed, you are the same!" Richard rejoined. Once more he lay looking full at her, until she became almost abashed by that unswerving scrutiny. It came over her that the plane of their relation had changed. Richard was, as never heretofore, her equal, a man grown.
Suddenly he spoke.
"Can you forgive me?"
And so far had Katherine's thought journeyed from the past, so absorbed was it in the present, that she answered, surprised:—
"My dearest, forgive what?"
"Injustice, ingratitude, desertion," Richard said, "neglect, systematic cruelty. There is plenty to swell the list. All I boasted I would do I have done—and more."—His voice, until now so even and emotionless, faltered a little. "I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."
Katherine's hand closed down on his firmly.
"All that, as far as I am concerned, is as though it was not and never had been," she answered.—"So much for judgment on earth, dearest.—While in heaven, thank God, we know there is more joy over the one sinner who repents than over the ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance."
"And you really believe that?" Richard said, speaking half indulgently, half ironically, as if to a child.