Guy was going early the next morning before she was up, and if she would send any message to Roger it must be written that night. Once she thought to write him a long letter, begging him for her sake and Alice’s, whom he was sure to love, to forgive her father all the wrong he had done, and to come to them at Beechwood, where he would receive a cordial welcome. But after a moment’s reflection she felt that she was hardly warranted in writing thus. His cordial welcome from all parties was not so certain. Mr. Grey had not intimated a wish to see him or hinted at anything like gratitude for all Roger had done for her. It would be pleasanter both for Roger and her father never to meet. She could not invite him to Beechwood and so with a gush of tears she took her pen and wrote to him hastily:
“Mr. Irving: Can you forgive me when you hear who I am, and will you try to think of me as you did in the days which now seem so very far in the past. I have been your ruin, Roger. I have brought to you almost every trouble you ever knew, and now to all the rest I must add this, that I am the child of your worst enemy, Arthur Grey. Don’t hate me for it, will you? Alice, who is much better than I, would say it was God’s way of letting you return good for evil. I wish you would think so, too, and I wish I could tell you all I feel, and how grateful I am to you for what you have done for me. If I could I would repay it, but I am only a girl, and the debt is too great ever to be cancelled by me. May Heaven reward you as you deserve.
“Your grateful Magdalen.
“P. S.—Mr. Seymour will tell you the particulars of my strange story. You will like him. There is not a drop of Grey blood in his veins.”
This was Magdalen’s letter, which she handed to Guy in her father’s presence when she went to say good-night to the two gentlemen in the parlor.
“Will you write to Mr. Irving, too?” she asked Mr. Grey, who shook his head, while a look of embarrassment and pain flitted across his face.
“Not now,—some time perhaps I may. I am truly grateful to him, and Guy must tell him so. Guy will know just what to say. I leave it in his hands.”
Mr. Grey was not quite like himself that night, and when next morning Magdalen met him at breakfast, he still seemed abstracted and absent-minded, and but little inclined to talk. When breakfast was over, however, he went with her to her room, and sitting down beside her grasped her hands in his, and said:
“Magdalen, my child, I never expected to see this day,—never thought there was so much happiness in store for me,—a happiness I have not deserved, and which still is not unmixed with pain and humiliation. Magdalen, my daughter,” he continued, “there is something between us which should not be between a father and his child. I feel it in your manners, and see it in your face, and hear it in your voice. What is it, Magdalen?”
He was talking very kindly, and sadly too, and the tears glittered in Magdalen’s eyes, but she did not reply. She could not tell him all the hard things she had written against him in her heart, before she knew him to be her father, but he guessed them in part, and continued: