"If you would please not recall these things, mother!" besought Adela, meekly, tears starting to her eyes. "Especially today, when we are all so happy."
Somehow the past, with all its terrible mistakes and the misery they had entailed, came rushing upon her mind so vividly that she could not control her emotion. Passing into the next room, and not perceiving her husband, her sobs broke forth. He came forward.
"My love, what is it?"
"Only——"
"Nay, tell me."
"Something mamma said made me think of that cruel time when—when I was so wrong and wicked. Francis, the shame and sin seemed all to come back again."
He held her before him; his tone one of tender reproof. "But the shame and sin never can come back, Adela. My wife, you know it."
"I know how good you are. And I know how merciful to me God has been," she replied, glancing at him through her wet lashes, with eyes full of love and devotion.
"Very merciful: very merciful to me and to you," whispered Francis Netherleigh. "Do you know, my darling, that through all that dark time, I never lost my trust in Him."