“Yes,” said the Master, sadly, “on that first day, you lifted up mine Cremona, and until to-day I have never forgiven. There has been resentment in mine old heart for you, though I have tried to put it aside. Her hands were last upon it—hers and mine. When I touched it, it was the place where her white fingers rested, where many a time I put mine kiss to ease mine heart. And you, you took that away from me!”
“If I had only known,” murmured Lynn.
“But you did not know,” said the Master, kindly; “and to-day I have forgiven.”
“Thank you,” returned Lynn, with a lump in his throat; “it is much to give.”
“Sometimes,” sighed the Master, “when I have been discouraged, I have been very hungry for someone to understand me—someone to laugh, to touch mine tired eyes, to make me forget with her little sweet ways. In mine fancy, I have seen it all, and more.
“When I have gone down the hill to the post-office, where there has never been the letter from her, and the little children have run to me, holding out their arms that I should take them up, I have felt that the price was too high that I have paid. But all the time I have understood that on the heights one must go alone, for a time at least, with the thunders and the lightnings and the storms. If I had been given one son, I think he would have been like you, one fine tall young fellow with the honest face and the laughing ways, but you have been shielded, and I should not have done so. I should have let you grow from the start and learn all things so soon as you could.”
“I never knew my father,” Lynn said, deeply moved, “but if I could choose, I would choose you.”
“So,” said the Master, his eyes filling. Then their hands met in a long clasp of understanding.
“Already I am the richer for it,” Lynn went on, after a little. “I know now what I did not know before.”
The boy’s face was still white, but the look of hopeless despair was merged into something which foreshadowed ultimate acceptance. The Master still held his hand.