Earnestly, fervently, Morris prayed, as for a dear brother; and when he finished, Wilford’s faint “Amen” sounded through the room.
“I am not right yet,” the pale lips whispered, as Morris sat down beside him. “Not right with God, I mean. I’ve sometimes said there was no God; but I did not believe it; and now I know there is. He has been moving upon me all the day, driving out my bitterness toward you, and causing me to send for you at last. Do you think there is hope for me? I have much to be forgiven.”
“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow,” Morris replied; and then he tried to point that erring man to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, convincing him that there was hope even for him, and leaving him with the conviction that God would surely finish the good work begun, nor suffer this soul to be lost which had turned to Him at the eleventh hour.
Wilford knew his days were numbered, and he talked freely of it to his father and sister the next morning when they came to him. He did not say that he was ready or willing to die, only that he must, and he asked them to forget, when he was gone, all that had ever been amiss in him as a son and brother.
“I was too proud, too selfish, to make others happy,” he said, “I thought it all over yesterday, and the past came back again so vividly, especially the part connected with Katy. Oh, Katy, I did abuse her!” and a bitter sob attested the genuineness of Wilford’s grief for his treatment of Katy. “I despised her family, I treated them with contempt. I broke Katy’s heart, and now I must die without telling her I am sorry. But you’ll tell her, Bell, how I tried to pray, but could not for thoughts of my sin to her. She will not be glad that I am dead. I know her better than to think that; and I believe she loves me. But, after I am gone, and the duties of the world have closed up the gap I shall leave, I see a brighter future for her than her past has been; and you may tell her I am——” He could not say, “I am willing.” Few husbands could have done so then, and he was not an exception.
Wholly exhausted, he lay quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, it was of Genevra. Even here he did not try to screen himself. He was the one to blame, he said, Genevra was true, was innocent, as he ascertained too late.
“Would you like to see her, if she was living?” came to Bell’s lips; but the fear that it would be too great a shock, prevented their utterance.
He had no suspicion of her presence; and it was best he should not. Katy was the one uppermost in his mind; and in the letter Bell sent to her next day, he tried to write, “Good-bye, my darling;” but the words were scarcely legible, and his nerveless hand fell helpless at his side as he said,
“She will never know the effort it cost me, nor hear me say that I hope I am forgiven. It came to me last night; and now the way is not so dark, but Katy will not know.”