Stirred by some vague sense of her presence near him he looked up and saw her; all his blood rushed into his face. He could not speak. She stooped towards him and laid her hand gently upon his.
'I am come to thank you.'
Her voice trembled.
He gave a restless sigh.
'Ah! for the child's sake,' he murmured. 'You do not come for me!—--'
She hesitated a moment, then she gathered all her strength and all her mercy.
'I come for you,' she answered in low clear tones. 'I will forget all else except that I once loved you.'
His face grew transfigured with a great joy.
He could not speak; he gazed at her.
'You were my lover, you are my children's father. You shall return to us,' she murmured, while her voice seemed to him heard in some dream of Heaven. 'Your sin was great, yes; but love pardons all sins, nay, effaces them, washes them out, makes them as though they were not. I know that now. What have not been my own sins?—my coldness, my harshness, my cruel, unyielding—pride? Nay, sometimes I have thought of late my fault was darker than your own; more hateful in God's sight.'