"What would be the result if your father should return to Deerwood?" Captain Murdock asked. "Would they proceed against him?"
"Oh, no! oh, no;" said Walter. "It was so long ago, and everybody who knew him speaks well of him now. I have often wished he would come home, and when I was a little boy, I used to watch by the window till it grew dark, and then cry myself to sleep. Did I tell you his arm-chair stands in the kitchen corner now just where he left it that night he went away! It was a fancy of grandpa's that no one should ever sit in it again, and no one has, but Jessie. She would make a playhouse of it, in spite of all we could say. I wish you could see Jessie and grandfather and all."
The captain wished so, too, and in his dreams that night, he was back again by the old hearth stone, sitting in the chair kept for him so long, and listening to his father's voice blessing his long-lost son.
All this might be again, he said, when he awoke but his young wife, whose face he saw, just as it looked on her bridal day, would not be there to meet him, and the strong man wept again as he had not done in many years, over the blight which had fallen so heavily upon him.
Rapidly the days and weeks went by, and then there came letters both from Mr. Graham and Mrs. Bellenger, telling how the wedding song had been changed into a wail of sorrow, and that the elegant William Bellenger was branded as a villain. Mr. Graham, too, spoke of Jessie, saying toward the close:
"You told me no news, dear Walter, when you said you loved my daughter. I knew it long ago and I have watched you narrowly, to see if you were worthy of her. That I think you are, I prove to you by saying, that to no young man of my acquaintance, would I entrust her happiness so willingly as to you, and had you talked to me freely upon the subject, you would not, perhaps, have been in California now. Your remark concerning Mrs. Bartow reminded me of what she once told me, and when I questioned her again upon the subject, demanding to know the truth, she confessed the falsehood she imposed on you, by saying I did not wish you to marry Jessie. I can find nothing to excuse her save her foolish pride, which will probably never be subdued. Still she is your stanch friend now, just as she is poor William's bitter enemy. You have said you would not talk of love to Jessie until your father was proved innocent. This, my dear Walter, may never be, even if he is living, which is very doubtful. So why should you hesitate. You have my free consent to say to her whatever you think best to say. She is in Deerwood, now, with poor Lottie, who is sadly mortified at what she considers her disgrace. I am doing what I can for William, so is his grandmother; but his father refuses to see him or even hear his name spoken. Unfortunate Will, he seems penitent, and has acknowledged everything to me, even the wicked part he acted toward you, by deceiving you. I thank Heaven every day that Jessie's choice fell on you, and not on him."
This letter made Walter supremely happy, and to Captain Murdock, in whom he now confided everything, he told how, immediately on his return to New York, he should ask the young lady to be his wife.
"And would you like your father to come back even though his guilt could not be disproved?" the captain asked, and Walter answered:
"Yes, oh, yes; but I'm afraid he never will. Poor father, if I could once look upon his face."
"You shall—you do!" sprang to the lips of Captain Murdock, but he forced the wild words back, and going away alone, he prayed, as he often did, that the load he had borne so long might be lifted from his heart, and that the sun of domestic peace, which had early set in gloom, might shine upon his later life.