"Yes, you are, you're as good as I am. But why can't you open the door? are you locked in?"
"No; but—papa said I—I must stay by myself for a week if—if I did what I have done to-day. So please don't stay any longer, though it was ever so good in you to come."
"Good-by, then," and she moved away.
CHAPTER XIX.
"High minds of native pride and force
Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse!
Fear of their scourge mean villains have;
Thou art the torture of the brave."
—Scott.
Max sat before his writing-table, his folded arms upon it, and his face hidden upon them. He was in sore distress of mind. How he had fallen before temptation! into what depths of disgrace and sin! sin that in olden times would have been punished with death, even as the horrible crime of murder, and that must still be as hateful as ever in the sight of an unchangeable God.
And not only that sin, of which he had thought he had so truly and deeply repented, but another which he had always been taught was a very low and degrading vice. Oh, could there be forgiveness for him?
And how would his dear honored father feel when the sad story should reach his ears? would it indeed break his heart as Grandpa Dinsmore had said? The boy's own heart was overwhelmed with grief, dismay, and remorse as he asked himself these torturing questions.
The door opened, but so softly that the sound was lost in his bitter sobbing, then a hand rested lightly, tenderly upon his bowed head, and a gentle, pitying voice said, "My poor, dear boy, my heart bleeds for you."