Blank and desolate was Mr. Sandford's room. He allowed no one to come near him. He sent away Margaret, though she had insisted on bringing him food, and had tried to talk to him.
He sat long hours suffering acutely both physically and mentally. He seemed only now more fully to realise what a crime his was. His sister's character, in his eyes so feeble, was, he had conceived, unfitted for the position she should have held; and this was his own excuse to himself when conscience asserted itself, or rather tried to do so.
They had all left him, he thought. There had been a bustle and a movement in the hall, and he had heard wheels.
The light was waning fast over the room, by the shadow of twilight, in which his face looked wan and white.
He knew that his hours were numbered, and he wished to pray; but he had no habit of prayer; he had always been afraid....
How he was suffering! His heart beat as though each stroke would burst it.
The door opened very slowly, and he started up. Who was the intruder? Who was it that came to mock his sufferings?
Then a gentle voice spoke out of the dim and fading light—"Brother!" and Mrs. Dorriman came up and knelt down by his side.
"I have been wrong," she said. "I thought only of myself, and I did not realise your wrongs. Once again I come to say forgive, as I hope for forgiveness myself."
Her voice died away. She heard him say fervently, in a very low voice, "Thank God!" and she went on—