Like a tornado he tore them from my grasp.
“My darling,” he read. “Oh, Septimus. Give me another. Well, just one. My only darling. Light of my heart. Do you know what your lips are like? No, tell me.”
Then a great light shone in my father’s eyes.
“Providence has delivered them,” he said, “into our hands.”
For a moment I was silent. Then I rose to my feet.
“I had rather thought,” I said, “that might be the case.”
“Oh, it is,” said my father. “It is. Do you remember those beautiful words of David’s, ‘the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked’?”
“Not only do I remember them,” I said, “but had you not quoted them, I should certainly have done so myself.”
“We’ll wash them to-night,” said my father. “Put on your cap. No, it would perhaps be better to wear your bowler,” and five minutes later we were standing once more on the front-door step of Hopkinson House.