“He was sorry afterward, he tried to write to you, but he always broke down and could not go on; you were so young and he had been a shame to you.”

“You never told me this before.”

“Because I hated him, I hated my brother, for disgracing you and disgracing my mother and myself; I have grown forgiving since, since God has forgiven me.  He said that last day that you must not forget him.”

“He knew I would not forget,” said Miss Prudence, proudly.

“Did you ever hate him?”

“Yes, I think I did.  I believed he hastened poor father’s death; I knew he had spoiled all my life; yes, I hated him until my heart was softened by many sorrows—­John, I loved that man who went away—­so far, without me, but I held myself bound, I thought your brother would come back and claim [missing text] was while Jerome was in—­before he went to Europe—­ and I said the shame and horror was too great, I could not become anybody’s happy wife with that man who was so nearly my husband in such a place.”

“Have you regretted that decision since?” he questioned in a dry hard tone.

“Yes.”

How quiet her voice was!  “I was sorry—­when I read of his sudden death two years ago—­and I almost hated your brother again for keeping so much from me—­it is so hard not to hate with a bitter hatred when we have been so wronged.  How I have prayed for a forgiving heart,” she sighed.

“Have you had any comfort to-day?”

“Yes, I found it in my reading this morning.  Linnet was up and singing early and I was sitting at my window over her head and I learned a lesson of how God waits before he comforts in these words that were given new to me.  ’And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.’”

“I cannot see any comfort in that.”

There was a broken sound in the master’s voice that Miss Prudence had never heard before, a hopelessness that was something deeper than his old melancholy.  Had any confession that she had made touched him anew?  Was he troubled at that acknowledged hardness towards his brother?  Or was it sorrow afresh at the mention of her disappointments?  Or was it sympathy for the friend who had given her up and gone away without her?

Would Miss Prudence have been burdened as she never had been burdened before could she have known that he had lost a long-cherished hope for himself? that he had lived his lonely life year after year waiting until he should no longer be bound by the promise made to his brother at their parting?  The promise was this; that he should not ask Prudence, “Prue” his brother had said, to marry him until he himself should be dead; in pity for the brother who had educated him and had in every way been so generous, and who now pleaded brokenly for this last mercy, he had given the promise, rather it had been wrung out of him, and for a little time he had not repented.  And then when he forgot his brother and remembered himself, his heart died within him and there was nothing but hard work left to live for; this only for a time, he found God afterward and worked hard for him.