While they talk in subdued tones Samson Cereal joins them. His face is not as of old—the stern lines are softened, the eyes tender. It is with a trembling hand that he draws Dorothy into his embrace.
“It was a narrow escape, my darling. Only for her heroism you must have been lost to me. I hardly know what to say. God in his goodness has, I trust, forgiven me. This is the way he has chosen to open my eyes. Adela sinned, and it was right that we should part, but I have been wicked to keep alive in my heart the elements of bitterness and anger, instead of forgiving the wrong of the past. Now the scales are removed and I see my lamentable fault. Her last days shall be passed in peace,” he says brokenly.
“Oh, father! is she then fatally burned—has she given her life for me?” cries Dorothy.
“It is not that, my child. Her burns, though of a painful nature, are not fatal; but she is the victim of disease—consumption has claimed her for its own. God knows how it was contracted; perhaps through a lack of the necessaries of life, or it may be through nursing those who suffered from that terrible disease, for she tells me she has been a nurse in the hospitals, and through several yellow fever epidemics down South, trying to wash out her sin by doing good. The doctor has told me that she cannot live through another winter. Dorothy, shall this home be hers to the end?”
“A thousand times, yes, father; and it shall be my pleasure to wait upon her as though she were my own mother.”
John in the fullness of his heart draws her toward him and kisses her reverently.
“God bless you, sister,” he says brokenly; while her words have caused Aleck to suddenly remember the fortune teller of Cairo Street and wonder what part she will have in the last scene of this strange play, the dramatic climax arranged by the wily Turk.
“John,” says Samson Cereal, “you have heard this sad story from our good friend Craig. Do you hate me for the part I have played in it?”
“No, no, father. I can imagine your painful position. I blame no one. It is, as you say, a sad thing, indeed. The only way now is to forget the past.”
“That is right, John, you speak sensibly.”