He looked first puzzled, then troubled; but the dull light in his eyes was clearing, and gleam after gleam of intelligence was passing slowly over his face. It was evident that the heavy clouds were gathering up and rolling away, and that the distempered mists and unhealthy fogs which lay over the past were being dispelled by the reviving rays of memory. But it was manifest to Mark's eye (for Mark, too, was sitting beside his friend) that the backward views which Miles was obtaining through these rents in the clouds were often very painful ones. He changed color again and again, and passed his hand across his forehead, as if to wipe out their remembrance.
At last he took his mother's hand, and smiled such a smile as she had not seen on her son's face for many a long day—a smile of confiding love and of almost child-like simplicity. "I shall have to tell thee all things that ever I did, I think, mother; and thou must make thy heart ready to listen to a sad story."
"If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," was his mother's reply; "confess thy sins to God, and ask Jesus to reconcile thee to thy Father and his Father, to thy God and his God. Never mind the telling me all about them."
"I have confessed them to him, mother, and I do believe he has put away their iniquity. But it will be right for me to humble myself to the dust, after sinning with such a high hand: and I wish, I really do wish that someone else, you know who, was here to know all about it, too."
"No," said Mark, hastily, "if you mean the young woman, she never need know all the sad particulars about the past, now. Miles will lead a new life; he will uphold the good old family motto; he will 'Feare God, and worke ryteousnesse,' and the young woman's respect and love never need be shaken, I should think."
"She will only love him the more for all he has suffered," said a gentle voice; but when they looked round, Alice flushed and went to the window.
"Alice is right," said Mark Wilson, looking at her with fond pride; "there is nothing like honesty, and openness and truth. It was only to spare her and to spare him that I took the weaker part. We always walk safest and surest in broad daylight."
Miles held out his hand to his old friend and said, "That was the doctrine you always taught me; but I have been a bad scholar indeed. However, I shall tell Bella everything when I am strong enough; and then we shall see whether she will ever trust me again."
[CHAPTER VII.]
CHANGING SEASONS.