And that evening Mr. Colman, accompanied his wife to the abode of Walter Malcolm. The meeting between the brothers was a painful one. There was mingled shame and penitential sorrow on the part of the elder, while the countenance of the younger was expressive of the deepest agitation as he stood by the bedside of him who had cast so dark a cloud upon his youth. Harry Colman had yielded to the entreaties of Alice for this interview, while he felt that it would have been wrong to have denied it—but it was not until he looked upon Walter’s pallid face, and heard that once stern and familiar voice supplicating forgiveness, even with the humble avowal that it was undeserved, that the lingering spark of resentment was entirely extinguished within his breast—and when he breathed the much-desired word of pardon they were truly heart-felt.
And by returning good for evil he had indeed “heaped coals of fire” upon the head of his brother.
“From your birth, Harry, you were the object of my bitterest envy and hatred,” was the confession of Walter Malcolm, “for upon you was freely lavished the love of that mother whose affection I had never possessed. She had been forced by her family into a union with my father while her heart was another’s—and when her husband died and she was free to wed again, she married the one who had first gained her regard. This was the key to your superior claim upon our mother’s love. I will not now blame her for the wrong of partiality, though it was the basis of my demeanor toward yourself. I should have had sufficient strength of mind to have resisted its influence—but in this I was sadly deficient. To the last hour of her life my mother’s chief thought was of you. Yes, even in her dying moments her principal anxiety was for _your_ future happiness, while there was but little reference to the welfare of her eldest child. When she was no more, and you came to dwell beneath my roof, I scrupled not openly to show the sentiments which during our parent’s life-time I was obliged to conceal. And I had now an additional cause of dislike. I secretly accused you of robbing me of the affection of my little girl, who, as you will perhaps remember, always manifested a decided preference for your society. I did not reflect that my manner toward her was often cold and distant, and widely different from your own; and with such feelings of jealousy concerning you in my heart, it was scarcely to be wondered that I seized the first opportunity of ridding myself of your presence. Though I knew you to be guiltless of the fault for which I blamed you, I drove you from my dwelling, refusing from that moment to own you as a brother. Nor did I then experience the least remorse for the act—and during the years that followed I strove to forget that you had ever existed.