"Horace," said Percival, "Sissy wants your forgiveness."
"I've nothing to forgive," said Horace. "It is I who ought to ask to be forgiven. It was hard on me when first you came to Brackenhill, Percy, but it has been harder on you since. I hardly know what I said or did on that day: I thought you'd been plotting against me."
"No, no," said Sissy—"not he."
"No, but I did think so.—Since then I've felt that, anyhow, it was not fair. I suppose I was too proud to say so, or hardly knew how, especially as the wrong is past mending. But I do ask your pardon now."
"You have it," said Percival. "We didn't understand each other very well."
"But I never blamed you, Sissy—never, for one moment. I wasn't so bad as that. I've watched for you now and then in Fordborough streets, just to get a glimpse as you went by. I thought it was you who would never forgive me, because of Percival."
"He has forgiven," said Sissy. But her eyes still sought Percival's.
"Look here, Horace," he said. "There was a misunderstanding you knew nothing of, and Sissy feels that she might have cleared it up. It was cleared up at last, but I think it altered my grandfather's manner to you for a time. If you wish to know the whole I will tell you. But since it is all over and done with, and did not really do you any harm, if you like best"—he looked steadily at Horace—"that we should forgive and forget on both sides, we will bury the past here to-day."
"Yes, yes," said Horace. "Sissy may have made a mistake, but she never meant me any harm, I know."
"Don't! don't! Oh, Horace, I did, but I am sorry."