'I have been thinking that we have none of us appreciated Olive as we ought; since she has been ill a hundred instances of her unselfishness have occurred to me; in our trouble, Cardie, she thought for others, not for herself. I never remember seeing her cry except once, and yet the dear child loved her mother.'
Richard's face paled a little, but he made no answer; he remembered but too well the time to which his father alluded—how, when in his jealous surveillance he had banished her from her father's room, he had found her haunting the passages with her pale face and black dress, or sitting on the stairs, a mute image of patience.
No, there had been no evidence of her grief; others beside himself had marvelled at her changeless and monotonous calm; she had harped on her mother's name with a persistency that had driven him frantic, and he had silenced the sacred syllables in a fit of nervous exasperation; from the very first she had troubled and wearied him, she whom he was driven to confess was immeasurably his superior. Yes, the scales had fallen from his eyes, and as his father spoke a noble spirit pleaded in him, and the rankling confession at last found vent in the deep inward cry—
'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, in that I have offended one of Thy little ones,' and the Deo gratias of an accepted repentance and possible atonement followed close upon the words.
'Father, I want to speak to you.'
'Well, Cardie.'
'I know how my silence has grieved you; Aunt Milly told me. I was wrong—I see it now.'
Richard's face was crimsoning with the effort, but the look in his father's eyes as he laid his thin hand on his arm was sufficient reward.
'Thank God for this, my boy, that you have spoken to me at last of your own accord; it has lifted a heavy burden from my heart.'
'I ought not to have refused my confidence; you were too good to me. I did not deserve it.'