“‘Crystal,’ he said, with a heavy sigh, ‘can this be my child whom I have taught and guided, my child for whom I have prayed every night;’ and, touched by the gentleness of his tone, I crept a little nearer and clasped his feet.
“‘I can never be forgiven,’ I sobbed. ‘What has heaven to do with such a sinner as I?’
“‘Ah, little one,’ he answered, ‘have not I forgiven thee, and I was stretched on no cross for thy sake;’ and then, kneeling down by my side, he raised my wet face from the grass and laid it gently on his arm and kissed it, and then I knew I was forgiven.
“Never, never shall I forget how he talked to me—and yet he was ill—as a brother and a priest, too! How he helped me to bear the terror of the sin and the shame of my repentance; how, without removing one iota of its guilt or one dread of its probable consequences, he led me to the one consolation. ‘Thy sins, even thine, shall be forgiven thee,’ and then he took me back into the house, cast down indeed and humbled, but no longer despairing, and led me to Uncle Rolf.
“‘Father,’ he said, still holding my hand, perhaps because he felt how I trembled, ‘father, Crystal has come to ask your pardon and Margaret’s also for the pain she has caused you both, and to say that, with God’s help, she will never offend so again.’
“Never! oh, Raby, never! when the inborn enemy was strong as death and cruel as the grave. Oh, my good angel, Raby, what have the years written, against me—against me—your unhappy child?”
CHAPTER XXIV.
A GRAVE DECISION.
From the day
I brought to England my poor searching face
(An orphan even of my father’s grave);