'As the boy passed his father on his way out, he gave him a look full of love and compassion, and said, in a firm voice:
'"Sir, I pity and forgive you. If you have erred, it was under the full conviction that you were doing your duty."
'He closed the door softly, and staggered up to his own chamber.
'What was there in that look that went so home to the heart of the stern father—in those loving, broken words of the poor abused boy? If they did not stagger the conviction of his guilt, they made him feel most unhappy. Had he acted well, or wisely, or like a Christian? Was the punishment that he had inflicted—so harsh and degrading to a sensitive mind—likely to produce the desired effect? He could not answer the question in a manner at all satisfactory to his mind, or still the sharp upbraidings of conscience; and flinging himself upon his knees, he buried his face in his hands, and offered up to God an agony of repentant tears.
CHAPTER III.
'George Leatrim's first thought was to go to his mother; but then she was ill, and happily unconscious of what had taken place. Besides, like his father, she might believe the evidence that Ralph had witnessed against him, and he had not the fortitude to bear that. As his passion subsided, he had courage to recall the painful events of the past hour, and to acknowledge that the circumstances by which he was surrounded were suspicious enough to condemn him in any court of law, and must be maddening to a proud, sensitive man like his father. Struggling with the shame and agony of his position, he could not recognise this before, or admit that both his father and Ralph might be deceived.
'He had never felt the severe corporeal punishment during its infliction. His mind was in too violent a state of agitation to care for bodily suffering; but now that he was alone, the fiery indignation that had upheld his spirit in the hour of his humiliation flickered and went out, and the sense of degradation and intolerable wrong alone remained.
'He remembered how his father had spurned him from his feet, had called him a thief and a liar, and witnessed unmoved the infliction of a cruel punishment, administered by the hand of the menial who had accused him of the crime; and had ordered him from his presence without one word of pity or affection.
'These after-thoughts were terrible. George felt that he had not deserved this severity, and the tears which pride had restrained while under the weight of Ralph Wilson's unsparing hand now burst forth in a torrent, and he wept until the lamp of life flickered to extinction in his panting breast.
'The mother whom he wished to save from the knowledge of his degradation awoke suddenly from a short and disturbed sleep. She heard the sobs and moans in the adjoining room, and recognised the voice of her son. The next moment saw her seated upon his bed, her arms around the weeping boy. All sense of her own sickness, of her weak state, was gone. She was only conscious of his intense mental agony.