Amy came in very softly, to know if he was dead. They had told her she ought to leave it alone, but she could not see it so. Knowing all and feeling all, she felt beyond her knowledge. If it would—oh, if it would help him with a spark of hope in his parting, help him in the judgment–day, to have the glad forgiveness of the brother with the deeper wrong—there it was, and he was welcome.
A little whispering went on, pale lips into trembling ears, and then Cradock, with his shoes off, was brought to the side of the bed.
“He wonʼt know you,” Pearl sobbed softly; “but how kind of you to come!” She was surprised at nothing now.
Her father raised his languid eyes, until they met Cradockʼs eager ones; there they dwelt with doubt, and wonder, and a slow rejoicing, and a last attempt at expression.
John Rosedew took the wan stiffening hand, lying on the sheet like a cast–off glove, and placed it in Cradockʼs sunburnt palm.
“He knows all,” the parson whispered; “he has read the letter you left for him; and, knowing all, he forgives you.”
“That I do, with all my heart,” Cradock answered firmly. “May God forgive me as I do you. Wholly, purely, for once and for all!”
“Kind—noble—Godlike——” the dying man said very slowly, but with his old decision.
Bull Garnet could not speak again. The great expansion of heart had been too much for its weakness. Only now and then he looked at Cradock with his Amy, and every look was a prayer for them, and perhaps a recorded blessing.
Then they slipped away, in tears, and left him, as he ought to be, with his children only. And the telegraph of death was that God would never part them.