Sophie was strangely disconcerted; she had such fearsome awe of the Axtells, “she couldn’t think of interfering,” she said, “unless to make gruel or some condiment.”

I coaxed Miss Lettie to have her tea in her own room:  she certainly did not look like going down.  Under pretext of having the care of her, I seated sister Sophie at my station, and thus I had the house, outside of the tea-room, under my control.

“Come down now; don’t lose time,” I said to Miss Axtell, running up to her, half breathless from my haste.

“What for?  What is it?” she said.

“Papa is anticipating some grand effort in the managerial line from me, regarding two people in his house, and I don’t choose to manage at all.  Mr. McKey is waiting to see you.  I knocked to see, as I came up, and all the family are at tea.”

I went down with her.  There was no trembling, only a stately calm in her manner, as she drew near.

I knocked.  Mr. McKey answered, “Come in,” in his low, musical, variant tones.  I turned the knob; the door opened.  A moment later, I stood alone within the hall.  I walked up and down, a true sentinel on true duty, that no enemy might draw near to hear the treaty of true peace which I knew was being written out by the Recording Angel for these two souls.  They must have had a pleasant family-talk in the tea-room, they stayed so long.

At last I heard footsteps coming.  I told Miss Lettie, thinking that she would leave; but no, she said “she would stay awhile”; and so, later on, the two were sitting there in quietness of joy, when my father came up to see his patient.  Mr. Axtell was with him.  They went in; indifferent words were spoken,—­until, was it Abraham Axtell that I saw as I kept up my walking in the hall?  What mysterious change had come to transfigure his face so that I scarcely believed the evidence of my own eyes?  He came to the door and said, “Will you come in, Miss Percival?” I obeyed his request.  He closed the door, and turned the key.

“In the presence of those against whom he had sinned he would confess his fault,” were his first words; and he went on, he of whom they had asked a pardon, and drew a fiery picture of all that he had done, of the murder that he had doubly committed, for he had made another soul to bear his sin.

It was terrible to hear him accuse himself.  It was touching to see this proud Axtell begging forgiveness.  He offered the fatal cup to my father,—­

“Therein lies the evidence of my murder.  It was I who killed your daughter, Doctor Percival.  Although no court on earth condemns me, the Judge of all the Earth holds me responsible for her death.”

Doctor Percival tried to reason with him, said words of comfort, but he heeded them not:  they might as well have fallen on the vacant air.

“Blessings be upon you two! if, out of suffering, God will send joy, it will be yours,” Mr. Axtell said; and he offered his hand to Mr. McKey and his sister, as one does when taking farewell.