“Then, but for her, I should have been desperate; for day and night Letty’s face haunted me; Letty’s voice cried:  ‘Take me home!’ and every word of that imploring letter burned before my eyes as if written in fire.  Do you wonder now that I hid myself; that I had no heart to try for any honorable place in the world, and only struggled to forget, only hoped to expiate my sin?”

With his head bowed down upon his breast, David stood silent, asking himself if he had even now done enough to win the reward he coveted.  Christie’s voice seemed to answer him; for she said, with heartfelt gratitude and respect: 

“Surely you have atoned for that harshness to one woman by years of devotion to many.  Was it this that made you ‘a brother of girls,’ as Mr. Power once called you?  And, when I asked what he meant, he said the Arabs call a man that who has ’a clean heart to love all women as his sisters, and strength and courage to fight for their protection!’”

She hoped to lighten his trouble a little, and spoke with a smile that was like cordial to poor David.

“Yes,” he said, lifting his head again.  “I tried to be that, and, for Letty’s sake, had pity on the most forlorn, patience with the most abandoned; always remembering that she might have been what they were, if death had not been more merciful than I.”

“But she was not dead:  she was alive and working as bravely as you.  Ah, how little I thought, when I loved Rachel, and she loved me, that we should ever meet so happily as we soon shall.  Tell me how you found her?  Does she know I am the woman she once saved?  Tell me all about her; and tell it fast,” prayed Christie, getting excited, as she more fully grasped the happy fact that Rachel and Letty were one.

David came nearer, and his face kindled as he spoke.  “The ship sailed without her; she came later; and, finding that her name was among the lost, she did not deny it, for she was dead to us, and decided to remain so till she had earned the right to be forgiven.  You know how she lived and worked, stood firm with no one to befriend her till you came, and, by years of patient well-doing, washed away her single sin.  If any one dares think I am ashamed to own her now, let him know what cause I have to be proud of her; let him come and see how tenderly I love her; how devoutly I thank God for permitting me to find and bring my little Letty home.”

Only the snow-flakes drifting against the window-pane, and the wailing of the wind, was heard for a moment; then David added, with brightening eyes and a glad voice: 

“I went into a hospital while away, to look after one of my poor girls who had been doing well till illness brought her there.  As I was passing out I saw a sleeping face, and stopped involuntarily:  it was so like Letty’s.  I never doubted she was dead; the name over the bed was not hers; the face was sadly altered from the happy, rosy one I knew, but it held me fast; and as I paused the eyes opened,—­Letty’s own soft eyes,—­they saw me, and, as if I was the figure of a dream, she smiled, put up her arms and said, just as she used to say, a child, when I woke her in her little bed—­’Why, Davy!’—­I can’t tell any more,—­only that when I brought her home and put her in mother’s arms, I felt as if I was forgiven at last.”