“Oh, that it were come for both of us,” muttered Raby, in a tone so husky with pain that Margaret stopped.
“You are thinking of Crystal,” she said, softly, leaning toward him with a face full of sympathy. “That verse was beautiful; it reminded me of our child at once”—but as he hid his face in his hands without answering her, she sat motionless in her place, and for a long time there was silence between them.
But Margaret’s heart was full, and she was saying to herself:
“Why need I have said that, as though he ever forgot her? poor Raby—poor, unhappy brother—forget her! when every night in the twilight I see him fold his hands as though in prayer, and in the darkness can hear him whisper, ‘God bless my darling and bring her home to me again.’”
“Yes, dear;” but as she turned quickly at the beseeching tone in which her name was uttered, a smile came to her lips, for Raby’s hand was feeling in his inner breast-pocket, and she knew well what that action signified; in another moment he had drawn out a letter and had placed it in Margaret’s outstretched palm. Ever since this letter had reached them about two months ago, each Sunday the same silent request had been made to her, and each time, as now, she had taken it without hesitation or comment, and had read it slowly from beginning to end.
The envelope bore the Leeds postmark, and the letter itself was evidently written hurriedly in a flowing, girlish hand.
“My Dearest Margaret,” it began, “I feel to-night as though I must write to you; sometimes the homesickness is so bitter—the longing so intense to see your dear face again—that I can hardly endure it; there are times when the restlessness is so unendurable that I can not sit still and bear it—when I feel as though I have but one wish in the world, just to feel your arms round me again, and hear from your lips that I am forgiven, and then lie down and die.
“You suffer, too, you say, in the one letter that has reached me: I have ever overshadowed your happiness. You and Raby are troubling your kind hearts about me, but indeed there is no need for any fresh anxiety.
“I have met with good Samaritans. The roof that shelters me is humble indeed, but it shelters loving hearts and simple, kindly natures—natures as true as yours, Margaret—gentle, high-souled women, who, like the charitable traveler in the Bible, have sought to pour oil and wine into my wounds. How you would love them for my sake, but still more for their own!