She looked up with a feeling of gratitude. "Yes," she said; "yes, that is it, if only we could realise it—poor father. It was partly our fault, too, mother's, all of ours—and he is dead now."
"I know. Let him rest in peace; we are concerned no more with his doings or misdoings; our concern, yours and mine is with the living."
She did not answer; a piece of wood had fallen from the fire and lay blazing and spluttering on the hearth; she stooped to pick it up and he watched her.
"I know I have no business here now," he said. "Had I known of his death before, I would not have come to-day; I would have waited, but since I have come—Julia—"
She was standing straight now, the wood safely back in the fire; he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him. "Julia, you and I have always dealt openly, without regarding appearances, let us deal so now—since I have come. Won't you let me give you a receipt?"
Julia said afterwards that receipts for the payment of such debts were unnecessary and never given; which was perhaps as well, for the one she received in the dusk was not of a kind recognised at law. Could it afterwards have been produced it would not have proved the payment of money, though at the time it proved several things, principally the fact that, though friendship and comradeship are fine and excellent things, there are simple primitive passions which leap up through them and transfigure them and forget them, and it is these which make man man, and woman woman, and life worth living, and the world worth winning and losing, too, and bring the kingdom of heaven to earth again.
It also proved how exceedingly firmly a man who is in the habit of wearing a single eyeglass must screw it into his eye, for, as Julia remarked with some surprise, the one which interested her did not fall out.
Mr. Gillat came home with his fir-cones at a quarter to five. And when he came he saw that, to him, most fascinating sight—a motor-car, standing empty and quiet by the gate. He looked at it with keen interest, then he looked round the empty landscape for its owner, and not seeing him, wondered if he was in the house. He put away the cones and came to the conclusion that the owner was not there and the car was an abandoned derelict. For which, perhaps, he may be forgiven, for there was no light at the parlour window and no sound of voices that he could hear from the kitchen; even when he opened the door and walked in he did not in the firelight see any one besides Julia at first.