Taking Mrs. Worthington’s hand one day, she said,
“I’ve given you little cause to love me, and I know how glad you must be that another, and not I, is your real daughter. I did not know what made me so bad, but I understand it now. I saw myself so plainly in that man’s eyes; it was his nature in me which made me a second Satan—so bad to you, so hateful to Hugh. Oh, Hugh! the memory of what I’ve been to him is the hardest part of all, for I want him to think kindly of me when I’m gone!” and covering her face with the sheet, ’Lina wept bitterly; while Hugh, who was standing behind her laid his warm hand on her head, smoothing her hair caressingly, as he said,
“Never mind that, ’Lina; I, too, was bad to you—provoking you purposely many times, and exposing your weakness just to see how savage you would be. If ’Lina can forgive me, I surely can forgive ’Lina.”
There was the sound of convulsive sobbing; and then, uncovering her face, ’Lina raised herself up, and laying her head on Hugh’s bosom, answered through her tears,
“I wish I had always felt as I do now. We should have been happier together, and it would not be so great a relief to you’all to have me gone, never to come back again. Hugh, you don’t know how bad I’ve been. You remember the money you sent to Adah last summer in mother’s letter. I kept the whole. I burned the letter, and mother never saw it. I bought jewelry with Adah’s money. I did so many things, I—I—it goes from me now. I can’t remember all. Oh, must I confess the whole, everything, before I can say, ‘Forgive us our trespasses?’”
“No, ’Lina. Unless you can repair some wrong, you are not bound to tell every little thing. Confession is due to God alone,” Alice whispered to the agitated girl, who looked bewildered, as she answered back, “But God knows all now, and you do not; besides, I can’t feel sorry towards Him as I do towards others. I try and try, but the feeling is not there—the sorry feeling, I mean, as sorry as I want to feel.”
“God, who knows our feebleness, accepts our purpose to do better, and gives us strength to carry them out,” Alice whispered, again bending over ’Lina, on whose pallid, distressed face a ray of hope for a moment shone.
“I have good purposes,” she murmured, “but I can’t, I can’t. I don’t know as they are real; may be, if I get well, they would not last, and it’s all so dark, so desolate,—nothing to make life desirable,—no home, no name, no friends—and death is so terrible. Oh, Hugh, Hugh! don’t let me go. You are strong; you can hold me back, even from Death himself, and I can be good to you; I can feel on that point, and I tell you truly that, standing as I am with the world behind and death before, I see nothing to make life desirable, but you, Hugh, my noble, my abused brother. To make you love me, as I hope I might, is worth living for. You would stand by me, Hugh,—you if no one else, and I wish I could tell you how fast the great throbs of love keep coming to my heart. Dear Hugh, brother Hugh, don’t let me die,—hold me fast.”
With an icy shiver, she clung closer to Hugh, as if he could indeed do battle with the king of terrors stealing slowly into that room.
“Somebody say ‘Our Father,’” she whispered, “I can’t remember how it goes.”