The girls did not say one word to each other as they went back to the village together. Any one meeting them might have judged them the best of friends; only as Myfanwy branched off to the smith's cottage she paused a moment to say with a smile--
"Some day I will pay you out for this, Alicia Edwards--so, mark my words, you will pay!"
"May you be forgiven, Myfanwy Jones," retorted Alicia with spirit; "I have but done my duty."
Left alone by themselves the brothers reverted of necessity to more humble, more homely relations. The righteous wrath gave place to real grief, the blank, hopeless remorse to real regret.
By the time that the housekeeper came in to clear away the almost untouched tea, they had both accepted the position in so far as it could be accepted. There was nothing for it but to face this public confession, and by so doing make what reparation could be thus tardily made. Mervyn, indeed, was by far the more cheerful when the time came to say good-night. He had barely had time to think; the relief of having touched bottom, as it were, was great; he felt, in fact, as a repentant criminal might do on his last night on earth, as if the morrow which was to bring expiation must also bring pardon and peace.
They had spent the evening together on the highest possible plane of religious exaltation, and it was Mervyn who gripped his brother's hand and said "Courage!" out of the fulness of his emotion. His face looked almost saintly as he said it.
An hour later, indeed, when Morris--who had lingered near the dying fire, beset, now he was alone, by almost unbearable grief--looked in to see if his brother were asleep, he found him lying like a child, smiling in his dreams.
Morris gave a faint sob, and Mervyn stirred in his sleep. "Mother," he said hurriedly, softly--"Mother, dear, dear mother--I must."
Instinctively Morris blew out the light he held, lest it might wake the dreamer from his dream; so in the moonlight he stood, torn asunder by love and grief, watching the dim peaceful form upon the bed.
Suddenly he turned and, closing the door silently behind him, went downstairs once more. Outside the narrow walls of the house, the moonlight slumbered peacefully upon the everlasting hills. Surely somewhere beyond the narrow walls of this world's judgment slept eternal Peace.