The boy took the gray head between his hands, and kissed his father on the forehead, wetting his face with his tears.
‘It is more than I deserve,’ said the old man. ‘I was a scoundrel, a villain! I broke your mother’s heart, Desmond, the sweetest, purest heart that ever beat. Ye can’t forgive me for that! Nothing can ever take that load from my heart, nothing, till I die and she asks God to pardon me.’
‘Father!’ said Desmond. ‘I have strange news for you. Are you well and strong enough to bear it?
‘Nothing can hurt me now,’ replied Kilpatrick.
‘You don’t know what it is,’ replied Desmond. ‘I’m afraid ’twill be a dreadful shock to you at first, but a happy one after, I hope.’
‘Well,’ said the father, with a faint touch of his old quickness of temper, ‘what is it? Speak out, my boy, and tell me. Some scrape you’ve got into, eh? Well, that’s forgiven before you tell me.’
‘You regret the past?’ asked Desmond. ‘You would make amends for it to the utmost extent in your power?’
‘I _will_ make amends for it, Desmond. There is nothing you can ask me I will not do, no burden that you can lay upon me that I will not gladly bear.’
‘I hope,’ said Desmond, after a short pause, ‘that you won’t think what I’m going to tell ye is a burden. Faith, ’tis hard to know where to begin! Supposing--mind, I only say supposing--supposing my mother were not dead at all, supposing she were alive, and came back here, would you make the same amends to her as you say you’ll make to me?’ ‘You--you torture me!’ cried Kilpatrick. ‘Why rake up these painful recollections? Why ask questions of this sort, when they can do no good? Every day of my life, for eighteen years past, I have repented the wrong I did. God knows, if it were possible, I would repair it.’
‘God knows I do!’ said Kilpatrick, ‘but of what avail is it to speak of such things now?’
‘Of more avail than you may think, father. Strange things have happened this last day or two.’
Kilpatrick searched his son’s face with distending eyes.
‘Desmond! For God’s sake, tell me what you mean!’
‘I mean,’ said Desmond, taking his father’s hand, ‘that God has been very good to us both, father. If I tell it to you too suddenly, forgive me--I don’t know how to break it properly. My mother is alive!’