Chapter XI: Mutual Confession

WHEN Michael rose the next day, he found to his satisfaction that the wind had changed. It no longer blew from the north-east. There was a soft, spring-like feeling in the air. It was time for Spring to herald her approach. The winter had been long and hard. No one felt more pleasure at the thought of its departure than did Michael Betts.

He opened his shop betimes on this fair morning, and then set to work to put things in order there. He felt very weak as he did so. More than once he dropped the heavy volumes he tried to lift. It was clear he was not the man he had been. No, he was beginning to fail. And then he thought with a smile and a sigh of the little fair-haired maiden who had thought him "so very old." He was very anxious to know how this morning found her. He kept hoping that the girl whose acquaintance he had made in so strange a manner would come in to tell him how the little sufferer was; but she did not come, and at last, unable to wait longer, he sent Mrs. Wiggins round to the house to make inquiries.

The news she brought cheered him greatly. She had been told that the little girl had taken a turn for the better, and there now seemed hope of her recovery.

"Thank God!" ejaculated old Michael.

He could not trust himself to say more. He felt so glad that he could have cried like a child for very gladness. As it was he had to take off his spectacles and wipe them very carefully more than once before he could go on with his work.

"Thank God," he said to himself over and over again. God had heard his prayer—their prayer. How he wished his new friend would come in, that they might rejoice together! He had known her but for a day; he did not even know her name; but the sorrow and anxiety they had shared, the prayer they had joined in breathing forth as from one heart, had united them by a close bond of sympathy which years of ordinary acquaintance could not have wrought.

But the girl did not appear all that day, nor the second day, nor the third. Michael began to feel a vague uneasiness concerning her.

"Surely she might have come round just to say how pleased she was," he thought. "Can it be that she wants to drop my acquaintance, or is her father worse? If only I knew where she lived, I'd go and see."

Meanwhile each day Margery was reported to be a little better. Her throat grew clearer, her voice more distinct, and signs of returning strength gladdened the heart of her anxious mother, till at length the little one's recovery no longer seemed doubtful.

How thankful Michael was, no words can tell. He felt that if the little one had died, he could never have forgiven himself for what he had done. As it was, the burden of his past weighed heavily on his mind. He fell into the habit of walking round to Mrs. Lavers' house every evening when his shop was closed. He would carry with him some little gift of flowers or fruit for the child. And Mrs. Lavers never refused these, never showed by word or look the least consciousness of the wrong he had done her.

Once when he spoke of it, she said: "Dear friend, let us forget all about that. Our Lord taught us that if we did not forgive the brother who wronged us, we could have no blessed sense of God's forgiving love. I forgive you from my heart, and God will forgive you too if you ask Him."

But old Michael went home with a heavy heart. He remembered how he had treated his own brother, and it seemed to him that he had no right to expect that God would forgive him his sins.

One evening Michael was in his shop, setting things in order at the close of the day. He had not yet put up his shutters; but he scarcely expected to have any more customers that day, when suddenly the door opened, the bell tinkled, and he looked up to see the worn, weary-looking preacher entering the shop. It was some time since this gentleman had been there, and Michael was pleased to see him again.

"Just in time, sir," he said; "in another ten minutes my shutters would have been up."

"Ah, well, I am very glad to find you here," replied the gentleman; "though I do not come as a purchaser. But what is the matter with you, Betts? You are not looking at all well."

"I have not been well, sir; but I'm better now. I've had a sharp attack of rheumatic fever, and it has left me as you see. I shall never be again the man I was."

"Dear me! I am sorry to hear that. Rheumatism is a terrible thing. You do look as if it had pulled you down. And unhappily I bring you news that will distress you. Do you know I am visiting a poor man in the district where my mission-hall is who tells me he is your brother."

Michael started and changed colour.

"It's true, sir," he said, after a moment's pause; "he is my brother."

"I thought so. I could not doubt his story as he told it. It is a sad story, Mr. Betts. He is now on his death-bed. I have come to entreat you to go with me to him."

Michael sank on to the nearest chair. He was trembling so that he could not stand. He said nothing, and the gentleman went on speaking.

"He feels that he has wronged you grievously, and he wants to make what amends he can, and to hear you say you forgive him, ere he passes away. I don't think you will find it hard to forgive him when you see him as he is."

"There's no need to talk so, sir. You don't understand. I've most need to ask his forgiveness. The wrong wasn't all on one side. I can see that now, though I couldn't before. Where is he, if you please, sir?"

"At no great distance. I will take you there at once, if you can come."

"Ay, I can come, sir; I have only to put up the shutters, and I shall be ready."

So in a few minutes they were on their way. In Oxford Street, the gentleman hailed an omnibus going westward, into which he helped old Michael, and then seated himself beside him. From this they alighted when it had carried them about a couple of miles.

"Now, do you feel able to walk a few steps?" the minister asked Michael.

"Yes, yes, I can walk," he replied; but in truth, he felt faint and tremulous, and could not have walked far. Happily it took them but a few minutes to reach their destination. A dreary, miserable street it was, though it lay very near to the large and handsome dwellings of the rich.

Michael looked with dismay on the dirty, squalid houses, the ill-kempt, slatternly women who sat on the doorsteps, or hung about the public-houses—there were three in the street, though it was not long—and the ragged urchins who disported themselves in the road. The minister paused before one of the houses. The wretched-looking women crouched together on the doorstep slowly rose and made room for them to pass into the house. The minister led the way up a foul and rickety staircase. Not till he reached the top did he pause and tap at a door. A voice within bade him enter, and he opened the door and advanced into the room.

Michael was slowly following him. The steep stairs tried his breathing, the close, ill-smelling atmosphere made him feel faint. He had to pause at the top of the stairs, clinging for a moment to the unsteady bannister, ere he could find strength to advance. As he waited, he heard a weak voice within asking painfully:

"Will he not come, Mr. Mason? Oh, don't tell me that he refuses to come!"

Michael went forward quickly into the room. It was a poor place. A table, a couple of chairs, a box or two, and the bed on which the sick man lay, were all the furniture; but it was fairly clean, and there were tokens of womanly efforts to make things as comfortable as they might be. By the bed stood the girl whose acquaintance Michael had made at Mrs. Lavers' door.

He started, and an exclamation of surprise escaped him as he recognised her; but she made a quick movement enjoining him to silence, and he said nothing.

"I've come, Frank," he said, turning his eyes upon the bed; "I've come, and with all my heart, I wish I had come sooner."

There could be little doubt that the hand of death was on the man who lay there. His wasted face was deadly pale, the breath came with difficulty through his parted lips; there was a look of anguish in his eyes, and when he spoke it was by a painful effort.

"Thank God you've come in time, Michael. Will you come and sit here close beside me, so you may hear what I have to say, though I can't speak loud?"

Michael took the seat indicated without a word. Such emotions swept over him at the sight of his brother that it was impossible to speak.

"Kate," said the sick man, making a sign which she understood in a moment.

She knelt down beside the bed, and began fumbling for something beneath the mattress. Presently she drew forth a tiny bag made of faded scarlet flannel, which she placed beside her father.

"Michael," said the sick man feebly, "I was a sore trial to you before we parted. You might well feel ashamed of me, as I know you did. I was a bad, ungrateful brother."

"Don't speak of it," said Michael huskily; "never mind that now."

"But I must speak of it. I sent for you that I might speak of it, as Mr. Mason knows. Michael, the last time you gave me shelter in your home I was so ungrateful, so shameless, that I stole one of your books and carried it off with me."

"I know that you did," replied Michael, "but never mind that now, Frank."

"It was a Greek book," continued the other, without heeding his words. "I'd heard you say that it was worth seven pounds. I could not get that for it; but I found a dealer who was willing to give me half, and for that I sold it. The money soon went in drink, and I thought no more about it for a long time. Then I married. At first I let my wife think that I had no one in the world belonging to me; but one day when I'd taken a drop too much, I let out that I had a brother who was a well-to-do tradesman, and then she set her heart on seeing me reconciled to my brother. I had to tell her the whole story at last, just to make her see it was impossible. But even then she would not see it. No; she just said that I must save the money I'd had for the book, and pay it back to you. It was she who began the saving, you see. We did not get on very fast with the saving; but we made a beginning. Then she fell ill. Mr. Mason began to visit us then. He's been a good friend to us. He tried to make me a sober man for a long, long while before he succeeded."

"Don't say that I succeeded," said Mr. Mason. "It was the grace of Christ that delivered you from sin and enabled you to begin a new life."

"It is more than a year ago," said the sick man slowly, "since I took the pledge, and Kate and I have been trying ever since to add to the money in the bag. My wife left it in Kate's hands; she knew she could not trust it to me. It has not been easy to save. Kate put most into it, not I. She's a good girl is Kate, though I say it."

"Ah, she's a good girl," said Michael, so fervently that his brother looked at him in surprise.

"What, you say so too? But you do not know her."

"I can tell by the looks of her," said Michael evasively.

"Ah, well—it's true anyway. But now about this money, Michael. I have so longed to make your loss good. I thought you'd believe I was a changed man if I gave you back your money. But it's been hard work. We've had to draw out some of the money since I've been ill. There's only five pounds in the bag now, and I wanted to make it seven, for you said the book was worth that to you. Here's the money; take it and count it."

But Michael pushed the bag from it.

"No, no, Frank; keep the money. I don't want it, indeed. I would rather not have it."

"But you must take it," cried the other excitedly. "I can't rest unless you do. Ah, Michael, you don't know, an honest, respectable man as you've always been, what it is to have the burden of such a deed resting on your conscience."

"Don't say that, Frank—don't for goodness sake talk that way, for it's not true!"

"But it is true," protested the other; "don't I know the good, honest, steady man you've always been? Haven't I sometimes felt proud that I had such a brother, and wished enough that I'd been more like you? Why, I've told Kate here about you often enough. Once I sent her round to the shop, to have a look at the place and to see the kind of man you were."

"But all the while you were under a mistake concerning me," groaned Michael, feeling himself compelled to confession. "What if I were to tell you that I am a man who has robbed the fatherless and the widow?"

"I'd not believe it," returned his brother. "No, not if you said it with your own lips, Michael."

"But it is true," he cried. And then brokenly, confusedly, he told the story of how he had kept the bank-notes he had found in the professor's book.

There was silence for some moments when he had ceased. Then the sick man leaned forward and laid his wasted hand on his brother's.

"Oh, I am so sorry for you, Michael," he whispered. "I know what you must have suffered with that burden on your heart. We are fellow-sinners."

"But I am the worse," said Michael. "'The first shall be last,' the Bible says. In the pride of my heart I thought myself far above you; but you would never have done a thing like that. No, you have been a better man than I all along. It's bad to be profligate; but I do believe it is worse to have a hard, unloving, pharisaical heart."

"'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,'" said the minister; and, as they all kept silence, he began to pray aloud, expressing as he believed the desire of each heart as he besought the Divine Father to forgive and blot out the sins of the past.

And as he prayed, its burden fell from the spirit of Michael Betts; his proud, hard heart was broken, and became as the heart of a little child in its sorrow and contrition. It was the birth-hour of a new life to him.