“Yes, yes,” said the Father, “I see quite plainly how it has been. He was like tinder, ready to take fire at a spark, and you were thinking I had been hard and cruel and in-human.”
It was the truth; John could not deny it; he held down his head and was silent.
“But shall I tell you why I refused that poor boy's petition? Shall I tell you who he was, and how he came to be here? Yes, I will tell you. Nobody in this house has heard it until now, because it was his secret and mine and God's alone—not given me in confession, no, or it would have to be locked in my breast forever. But you have thrust yourself in between us, so you must hear everything, and may the Lord pity and forgive you and help you to bear your burden!”
John felt that a cold damp was breaking out on his forehead, but he clinched his moist hands and made ready to control himself.
“Has he ever spoken of another sister?”
“Yes, he has sometimes mentioned her.”
“Then perhaps you have been told of the painful and tragic event that happened?”
“No,” said John, but something that he had heard at the board meeting at the hospital returned at that moment with a stunning force to his memory.
“His father, poor man, was one of my own people—one of the lay associates of our society in the world outside. But his health gave way, his business failed him, and he died in a madhouse, leaving his three children to the care of a friend. The friend was thought to be a worthy, and even a pious man, but he was a scoundrel and a traitor. The younger sister—the one you know—he committed to an orphanage; the elder one he deceived and ruined. As a sequel to his sin, she lived a life of shame on the streets of London, and died by suicide at the end of it.”
John Storm put up one hand to his head as if his brain was bursting, and with the other hand he held on to the Father's chair.