“I respected him highly,” said Margaret, at length. “He was a good man, Lynn.”
“You have answered,” he returned. “You don’t know—you don’t understand.”
“But I do understand,” she flashed.
“You can’t, if you didn’t love father.”
“I—I cared for someone else,” said Margaret, thickly, unwilling to be convicted of shallowness.
Lynn looked at her quickly. “And you still care?”
Margaret bowed her head. “Yes,” she whispered, “I still care!”
“Mother!” he cried. In an instant, his arms were around her and she was sobbing on his shoulder. “Mother,” he pleaded, “forgive me! To think I never knew!”
They had a long talk then, intimate and searching. “You have borne it bravely,” he said. “No one has ever dreamed of it, I am sure. The Master told me, the other day, that I must not be afraid of life. He said that everything, even our blessings, came to us through pain.”