“I had a long apprenticeship,” his sister said. “I used to read to father by the hour. Through that long illness of his it seemed as though I was always reading to him. We began reading aloud when we were little children, you know. Don’t you know how father used to have Derrick in to read to him every night after supper? Derrick was a good reader for a boy, wasn’t he?”
Mr. Forman made a sound as of assent, and she went on sturdily: “You don’t remember those evenings as well as I do, I suppose; you went away from home so early. Derrick was naturally a stay-at-home boy; he never seemed to care to run with the other boys, evenings, as Evarts did, and he seemed to understand just what parts of the paper father wanted, without being told. I have always been thankful that father had so much comfort with his boy.”
If she hoped to awaken sympathetic response she was disappointed. Mr. Forman remained silent, with his face shaded from view.
But Aunt Elsie’s resolve was strong within her, and although she stood somewhat in awe of this grave brother, of whom she had seen very little since her childhood, she went bravely on:
“Doesn’t it seem almost too bad that Derrick’s whole life should have been shadowed and he separated from all the people he loved just through a mistake?”
Forced to speak, Mr. Forman made his words few:
“I should have to call it by a graver name than ‘mistake.’”
“For Horace Beach, you mean? Yes, of course, his part was sin; though I don’t think even that was premeditated; it was just a sudden temptation that he was too flabby to resist. But I was thinking of father, and—” There was a second’s hesitation, then she added, bravely: “And mother. It was such a dreadful mistake on their part not to trust a boy who had never deceived them. Of course, he was wrong, as well as foolish, in hurrying away without confiding in them, but even that grew out of the natural nobility of his nature, and he never would have done it in the world if father had shown confidence in him. I heard your Derrick say, last night: ‘My father would take my word in spite of all the evidence against me that could be trumped up,’ and I’m sure you would. If our father could only have seen it his duty to trust the boy in spite of appearances, all these wasted years need not have been.”
Mr. Forman pushed aside his hand-screen and came to a sitting posture, with a quick motion and an incisive question:
“Elsie, what in the world are you talking about?”