long as I live, and I am so young, only fourteen, and I meant to be a
great and honorable man, and a good one, too. And I can still be that.
God knows I am not to blame. Would he hear me, I wonder, if I should ask
him now to take some of this pain away which fills my heart to
bursting!"

And there, on the pure white snow, in the shadow of the leafless woods,
the heart-broken boy knelt down, and with clasped hands, and the great
tears streaming over his upturned face, asked God to forgive him for his
grandfather's sin, and take the pain away, and help him to be a good
man, if he could never be great and distinguished. And God heard that
prayer made to him in the wintry night, from the depths of the boyish
heart, and a feeling of quiet came over Grey as he resumed his walk.

"I am not to blame," he said, "and people will not think so if they
know, which they never will, for father will not tell, nor Mr. Sanford
either; but I shall always know, and life will never be the same to me
again."

It certainly looked forlorn and dreary enough to him by the time he
reached Grey's Park, and letting himself quietly in, he crept
noiselessly up to his bed, from which he did not rise until late the
next morning, when his Aunt Lucy came herself to call him, and told him
his grandfather was dead.




CHAPTER XI.