have fought your fight and won it, at the foot of the cross. To say that
I forgive you, that we both, the living and the dead, forgive you, is the
very least that can be said. Come here! Come and be my daughter as before!
My daughter!" he repeated. And Daphne, on her knees, put her arms about his
neck and hid her face against him.

"Thank Heaven!" he murmured brokenly, "it cannot hurt him now. He has found
his 'cure.' As a candle-flame in this broad sunlight, so all those earthly
longings"--The old gentleman could not finish his sentence, though a
sentence was dear to him almost as the truth from which, even in his love
of verbiage, his speech never deviated. "So we leave it here," he said at
last. "It is between us and our blessed dead. No one else need know what
you have had the courage to tell me. Your confession concerns no other
living soul, unless it be your mother, and I see no reason why her heart
should be perturbed. As for the money, what need have I for more than
my present sufficiency, which is far beyond the measure of my efforts
or deserts? I beg you never to recur to the subject, unless you would
purposely wish to wound me. This is a question of conscience purely, and
you have made yours clean. Are you satisfied?"

"Yes," said Daphne faintly.

"What is the residue? Or is it only the troubled waters still heaving?"

"Yes, perhaps so."

"Well, the peace will come. Promise me, dear, that you will let it come. Do
not give yourself the pain and humiliation of repeating to any other person
this miserable story of your fault."