"I do not ask nor deserve to be spared," he said, with some dignity, "and my first explanations shall be offered to those who have most right to them. But this I will say, for I can see that you speak with sincerity. I came back to seek forgiveness and to find peace, but I am justly punished for my sin in that I forfeit both. You have not said much, but you have said enough to let me realise that the curse of Cain is upon me."
"It is not," said Mother Hubbard calmly and with firmness; "your father would have told you so. Go home to your mother, and you will find in her forgiveness and love a dim reflection of the forgiveness and love of God, and peace will follow."
He rested one elbow upon the table and leaned his head upon his hand, whilst his fingers tapped a mechanical tune upon his forehead, but he did not speak for several minutes--nor did we. Then he rose and took the still damp overcoat from the clothes-horse before the fire, and said as he put it on:
"Since I left home I have had many hard tasks to perform, But the hardest of them all now lies before me, and though I have made some little money I would give every penny I possess if the past could be undone and that grey-haired man brought back to life. I am accounted a bold man, but I would sooner face a lion in the Rhodesian jungle than my mother and sister on yonder farm."
"Go in peace!" said the little mother. "God stands by the side of every man who does his duty, and your mother, remember, is about to experience a great joy. Let them see that you love them both, and that you loved your father too, and that will heal the wound more quickly than anything else."
He shook Mother Hubbard's hand, bowed to me, and stepped out into the rain; and I watched him walk briskly forward until the mist swallowed him up.
Two days afterwards I heard the sequel. The rain had cleared away and the roads were fairly dry when I set off with the intention of walking as far as Uncle Ned's. Before I had gone very far I overtook Farmer Goodenough, who was journeying in the same direction, and almost immediately afterwards we met Jane Brown.
"I was just comin' to see you, Miss Holden," she said, "but as you're going my way I'll walk back with you if you'll let me. Mother wants to know if you can take our photographs--hers and Joe's and mine--on Monday."