And then, between choking sobs and torrents of tears, came the story that we know. The whole story—without excuses, without slurring over the sad wrongness of it all, in any way, till at the end the miserable little face hid itself on her aunt’s shoulder while she murmured—
“Can I ever be forgiven? Is it any use for me to pray for Japs to get better? I haven’t dared to before—oh Auntie, Auntie.”
It was, under the circumstances, a terrible confession to hear, though, at the root of it all, was nothing worse than childish carelessness and disobedience, followed, all too naturally, alas, by concealment and deceit. And for a moment, or two Miss Fortescue felt as if she could scarcely speak.
“How could they? How could they?” she said to herself. But when Leila, too, flung herself upon her, in less stormy but still agonised penitence, saying over and over again, “I’ve been as much to blame. I have. I was older and I knew how wrong it was. Poor Chrissie—you were no naughtier than I was,” a strange sort of calm, almost of joy, came over Aunt Margaret.
“The lesson they needed—was this to be it?” she thought. “Oh, if the darling can yet be restored to us—if only our prayers may be granted.”
And the very thought brought hope again, and strength to speak the best and wisest words to the two broken-hearted little girls—words which they never would forget—true in their earnest, even stern, blame of the small wrong-doings which had led to greater, yet full of loving sympathy and encouragement.
But the night which followed—of broken sleep and waking to fresh fits of misery; of miserable dreams, and flashes of hopefulness—gone as soon as they came!—the night was a dreadful one.
“Will the morning never come?” thought Chrissie as she woke for the twentieth time, to hear Leila’s half-stifled sighs and moans beside her. For the morning must bring news—if no better, it must be worse.
And as often happens in such cases, their first sound sleep was after dawn. And when they opened their weary eyes, Aunt Margaret was standing there, with, thank God, a smile on her face.
“Yes,” she said, before they could ask the question half-choking them. “Yes—a shade better. They are hopeful.”