"'Oh, I can not bear it,' I cried; 'I can not, can not, bear it.'
"'My child,' said Raby's grave voice close to me, 'if you are sorry, and your grief tells me you are, you must ask pardon of our Father in heaven."
"'Then--may a merciful God forgive me for my blasphemy--I cried, 'not His, but yours, Raby. I can not live without your love;' and then I was almost choked with my sobs.
"'Crystal,' he said, with a heavy sigh, 'can this be my child whom I have taught and guided, my child for whom I have prayed every night;' and, touched by the gentleness of his tone, I crept a little nearer and clasped his feet.
"'I can never be forgiven,' I sobbed. 'What has heaven to do with such a sinner as I?'
"'Ah, little one,' he answered, 'have not I forgiven thee, and I was stretched on no cross for thy sake;' and then, kneeling down by my side, he raised my wet face from the grass and laid it gently on his arm and kissed it, and then I knew I was forgiven.
"Never, never shall I forget how he talked to me--and yet he was ill--as a brother and a priest, too! How he helped me to bear the terror of the sin and the shame of my repentance; how, without removing one iota of its guilt or one dread of its probable consequences, he led me to the one consolation. 'Thy sins, even thine, shall be forgiven thee,' and then he took me back into the house, cast down indeed and humbled, but no longer despairing, and led me to Uncle Rolf.
"'Father,' he said, still holding my hand, perhaps because he felt how I trembled, 'father, Crystal has come to ask your pardon and Margaret's also for the pain she has caused you both, and to say that, with God's help, she will never offend so again.'
"Never! oh, Raby, never! when the inborn enemy was strong as death and cruel as the grave. Oh, my good angel, Raby, what have the years written, against me--against me--your unhappy child?"
From the day I brought to England my poor searching face (An orphan even of my father's grave); He had loved me, watched me, watched his soul in mine, Which in me grew, and heighten'd into love.
"The years rolled by, but, alas! they brought no added happiness with them. The taint in my nature that had revealed itself so unexpectedly, only developed more strongly as time went on; at rare intervals--very rare, I am thankful to say--fierce gusts of passion overmastered my reason, so that for a brief time I seemed like one possessed with an evil spirit.