My time had come. The opportunity was most mysteriously given me to
redeem the promise made in the morning to Miss Lettie. I began, quite
timidly at first, to say that I had a message for Mr. Axtell, one from
his sister,--that I was to tell him of events whose occurrence he never
knew. He listened quietly, and I went on, commencing at the afternoon of
my imprisonment in the tower. I told every word that I had heard from
Miss Axtell,--no more. I trembled, it is true, when I came to the death
of Alice, and the new life that came to his elder sister. I came at last
to Mary. I told it all, the night when he came home, the very words he
had spoken to his sister I repeated in his ears, and he was quiet,
with a quietness Axtells know, I took out the package and opened it,
saying,--
"Your sister bade me give this to you."
The careful folds were unwrapped, and within a box lay only a silver
cup. Mr. Axtell took it into his hands, turned it to the light, and read
on it the name of my sister. I said to him,--
"Look on the inside."
He did. It was the fatal cup from which Mary Percival drank the
death-drops. Poisonous crystals lay in its depth. I told him so. I told
him how Bernard McKey, driven to despair, had made the fatal mistake.
I thought to have seen the sunlight of joy go up his face. I looked for
the glance whose coming his sister so dreaded; but it came not. My story
gave no joy to this strange man. He asked a few questions only, tending
to illumine points that my statement had left in uncertainty, and then,
when my last words were said, he rose up, and, standing before me, very
lowly pronounced these words:--
"Until to-night, Abraham Axtell never knew the weight of his guilt. He
must work out his punishment."
"How can you, Mr. Axtell? Heaven hath appointed forgiveness for the
repentant."
"And freedom from punishment, Miss Percival, is that, too, promised?"
"Strength to bear is freely offered in forgiveness."
"May it come to me! In all God's earth to-night there dwells not one
more needy of Heaven's mercy."
"Mary forgives you," I said.
"Bernard McKey, whom I have made most miserable, Lettie's life-long
suffering, is there any atonement that I can offer to them?"
"Yes, Mr. Axtell"; and I, too, arose, for the party had gone whilst I
was telling my story.
"Will you name it?"
"Give unto the two a brother's love. Good night, Mr. Axtell."
"I will," said a deep, solemn voice close beside me. I turned, and
Mr. Axtell was gone. I heard footsteps all that night upon deck. They
sounded like those that came and stood beside me hours before.
Day was scarcely breaking when we came to land in New York. I waited for
the carriage to come from home. Mr. Axtell, was it he who came, with
whitened hair, to ask for Miss Percival, to know if he could offer her
any service? What a night of agony he must have lived through! He saw my
look of astonishment, and said,--
"It is but the beginning of my punishment."
Ere I had answered Mr. Axtell's question, my father appeared. He had
come for me so early on this March morning,--or was it to meet Mr.
Axtell? He said more, in words, to him than to his child. It was several
years since my father had met Mr. Axtell, therefore he did not note the
change last night had wrought. As I looked at him, during our homeward
drive, I repented not having said words of comfort, not telling him that
I believed Bernard McKey was at that hour in my father's house; but I
had not exceeded my instructions, by one word I had not gone beyond Miss
Lettie's story. Until Mr. McKey chose to reveal himself, he must exist
as a stranger.
Jeffy reported the "hospital man" as "behaving just like other people."
Jeffy evidently regretted, with all the intensity of his Ethiopian
nature, the subsiding of the delirium.
Not long after our arrival home, father went, with Mr. Axtell, into his
own room, where, with closed doors, the two remained through half the
morning. What could my father have to say to the "incomprehensible
man," his daughter Anna asked herself; but no answer breathed through
mahogany, as several times she passed near. All was silent in there to
other ears than those inside.
At last I heard the door open, and footsteps along the hall. "Surely," I
thought, "they are going the way to Mr. McKey's room." I was right. They
went in. What transpired in there I may never know, but this much was
revealed to me: there came thence two faces whereon was written the
loveliness of the mercy extended to erring man. My father looked, like
all who feel intensely, older than he did in the morning, and yet withal
happier. Mr. Axtell went away without seeing me. Father made apology
for him by saying that it was important that he should return home
immediately, and asked "could I make ready to receive some visitors the
following day?"
"Who, papa?" I asked.
"Mr. Axtell and his sister."
Mr. McKey was able that evening to cross the room, and sit beside the
fire. I went in to inquire concerning his comfort. Papa was away. Mr.
Axtell must have told him something of me, for I had not been long
there, when he, turning his large, luminous eyes from the coals, into
which he had been peering, said,--
"Do you know the sweetness of reconciliation, young lady? If not, get
angry with some one immediately."
"I never had an enemy in my life, Mr. McKey," I replied.