Yes, I will pray for you now, before you
start on your journey. Go open those folding-doors and we will pray in
the other room."
"What is there?"
"Your father."
He stopped a long while, and his cheek was blanched.
"Go first," he whispered finally. "I am not afraid."
She led the way to the bier, where the body, with the frost hardly yet
thawed from it, lay under the dim light of the chandelier. Turning up
the burners it was revealed in its relentless, though not unhappy,
expression--a large and powerful man, bearded and with tassels of gray
in his hair.
The young man in his coarse sailor's garb, muffled up for concealment
and disguise, placed his arm around Agnes, and his knees were unsteady
as he gazed down on the remains and began to sob.
"Dear," she murmured, also weeping, "I know you loved him!"
The young man's sobs became so loud that Agnes drew him to a chair, and
as she sat upon it he laid his head in her lap and continued there to
express a deep inward agony.
"I loved him always," he articulated at last, "so help me God, I did!
And a _parricide_! Can you survive it?"
"Andrew," she replied, "I have taken it all to heaven and laid the sin
there. Forever, my darling, intercession continues for all our offences
only there.
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