Molly and her agitated father were still kneeling together at the entrance of the cave, when Molly felt herself suddenly raised from the ground, then closely embraced, and, upon looking up, she saw herself in the arms of her grandfather, who, in the most unexpected manner, had tottered to the rude door of the cavern.
"O'Neil," said the old man, while his voice trembled audibly, "O'Neil, I have heard your prayer. I read in your moistened eyes that you have conquered; and that no feelings of revenge or hatred towards the man who has been the cause of all your misfortunes still linger in your soul. I freely acknowledge that I have treated you in the most shameful manner. The eager thirst for gold, that, like a wicked demon, possessed my whole being, induced me to betray your father, whose firmest friend I once was; it enticed me on to wish to sell, for my pecuniary advantage, my own sweet child. Baffled in this inhuman desire, I drove her from her home, burdened with my curse. It was the love of gold which led me on to oppress and abuse my tenants; to torture and drive them, until I had put into my own coffers all which they had gained by the bitter sweat of their rugged brows. Nay, it was indeed sometimes from their very heart's blood that my purse was filled. Tortured by this insatiable thirst for money, and stimulated by my cruel agent, Wilkins, whom you, O'Neil, had several times reproved for his cruelty, and who consequently hated you, I drove you from your last shelter, without suffering myself to be moved by your manly prayers; for Wilkins had already found another tenant, who was willing to pay a higher rent for your wretched hovel. Yet believe, upon my most solemn word, O'Neil, that I have never truly known you. A secret and gnawing anguish has tortured me for years, which I have in vain struggled to suppress. Dreaming and waking was the face of my poor daughter ever before me; sometimes pale and bloody, sometimes in the full brilliancy of her youthful bloom and beauty. O, if in that dreadful morning in which I drove you from your hut I had thrown a single glance upon the face of the maiden whom you call your child, and who is the perfect image of my daughter, now sleeping in the quiet grave, over which you have trained the long moss and planted the violet, certainly I must have granted your prayers, and all would have terminated in a different manner. But I do not regret it for my own sake. I bless my fate which led me to this desolate spot; I bless the fall from my horse, and the wound which I then received. If it had not been for these apparent misfortunes, I would never have found the ministering angel whose sweet compassion was so infinitely grateful to me, when I lay almost without consciousness before her; whose heavenly goodness restored me to life, and has given me back a far greater gift than life,—the possibility to love again!
"O'Neil," continued the old man, while from his eyes, which had long since almost forgotten to weep, two great tears rolled down and mingled with his tufted beard of snow;—"O'Neil," he cried, as if from the very depths of his heart, while he stretched out both his hands entreatingly towards the man whom he had so deeply injured;—"O'Neil, for the sake of this angel, forgive the hard father of your Kitty, whom you so ardently, so truly loved, and whose innocent life he filled with bitterness. O, forgive him, as she who has long since gone to her home in heaven forgave the cruel father, upon the very bed of death which he had prepared for her, for the cruel curses with which he had burdened her heart!"
Overpowered by a wild rush of alternating feelings, O'Neil fell upon the breast of the old man.
"My Kitty! my Kitty!" he cried, gazing up to heaven, while the gushing tears flooded his manly cheeks;—"my Kitty, if you had only lived to have seen this day! But be witness of all my struggling, yet deep feelings! Even as you prayed for and blessed your father with the last gasps of your breath, so will I also forgive him! Now," said he, heaving a deep sigh, and pressing the trembling hand of the old man to his heart, "now all is forgiven! all is forgotten!"
The two men clasped each other in a silent embrace, full of holy emotions. Repentance and forgiveness met, and understood each other!
Full of the highest happiness, Molly went to the cave to bring her sister out, who, tired of remaining so long alone, had already groped her way to the entrance.
"Come, Kitty, come," said she joyously, as she took the little one in her arms, "O, come quickly, for we have found our grandfather!"
"Our grandfather?" answered the astonished child; "you seem so rejoiced, Molly, that it must be a very pleasant thing to have found our grandfather!"