"Yes, you must not forget, dearest child, that you have a mother, and another home, here in the South. You will come sometimes? And for a long visit? The journey is so short nowadays, is it not? You will not forget altogether the lonely woman who has found a son--and a daughter?"
It was not until he and his mother were alone together that Derrick delivered his father's message; and he did so gently, tenderly, with his hand laid in hers. Donna Elvira was silent for a long time; then she said, in a low voice,
"We will leave it to time, Derrick. You say, in your language, that Time heals all things. And the wound is now almost healed. We will wait----Yes, we will leave it to time."
And with that Derrick had to be satisfied.
It was towards the close of their stay at the ranch that Derrick received a letter from his father containing the news of the death of him who had been known so long to the world as the Marquess of Sutcombe. The last days of the stricken man had passed in peacefulness and forgetfulness. He had never spoken of his son, had seemed to remember nothing of the terrible tragedy which had cast its shadow over all their lives; all his conscious thought had been of the brother whose place he had usurped, at first innocently, but whom now he had restored to his own. The letter closed with a hint that Derrick's father found the responsibility of his titles and honours somewhat hard to bear; and Derrick knew that the old man needed him.
This letter brought their visit--already a long one--to an end, and Derrick and Celia started for home. Nothing shall be said of their reception; indeed, the most eloquent pen could not attempt to vie with the glowing periods in which the great event was enshrined in the columns of the local paper; suffice it that, after a progress through many triumphal arches, much cheering; some speechifying on the part of Derrick--which was by no means particularly happy but was received with delirious enthusiasm--the carriage conveyed them to the Hall, where Derrick's father and Celia's old friend stood, leaning on his stick, and awaited them.
"Thank God you've come back, Derrick!" said his father, fervently. "You and Celia are wanted here, very badly. You see," he added, with a touch of pathos, "I have been away from all this so long, I am so unused to everything----My dear, will you believe me"--he turned to Celia with a smile that had not a little pathos in it--"I sometimes long for the quietude, the--the bareness of 'The Jail'!"
