r eyes and the gentle little mouth were unchanged. Horace
said "Oh, Sissy!" and Sissy said "Percival." He could not speak, but
stooped and kissed the little hand which lay passively on the coverlet.

"Whisper," said Sissy. He bent over her. "Have you forgiven him?" she
asked.

"Yes." The mere thought of enmity was horrible to him as he looked into
Sissy's eyes with that spectral Horace by his side.

"Are you sure? Quite?"

"Before God and you, Sissy."

"Tell him so, Percival."

He stood up and turned to his cousin. "Horace!" he said, and held out
his hand. The other put a thin hot hand into it.--"See here, Sissy,"
said Percival, "we are friends."

"Yes, we're friends," Horace repeated. "Has it vexed you, Sissy? I
thought you didn't care about me. I'm sorry, dear--I'm very sorry."

Aunt Harriet, standing by, laid her hand on his arm. She had held aloof
for that long year, feeling that he was in the wrong. He had not acted
as a Thorne should, and he could never be the same to her as in old
days. But she had wanted her boy, nevertheless, right or wrong, and
since Percival had pardoned him, and since it was partly Godfrey's
hardness that had driven him into deceit, and since he was so ill, and
since--and since--she loved him, she drew his head down to her and
kissed him. Horace was weak, and he had to turn his face away and wipe
his eyes. But, relinquishing Percival's hand, he held Aunt Harriet's.

Percival stooped again, in obedience to a sign from Sissy. "Ask him to
forgive me," she said.

"He knows nothing, dear."

"Ask him for me."

"Horace," said Percival, "Sissy wants your forgiveness."

"I've nothing to forgive," said Horace. "It is I who ought to ask to be
forgiven. It was hard on me when first you came to Brackenhill, Percy,
but it has been harder on you since. I hardly know what I said or did on
that day: I thought you'd been plotting against me."

"No, no," said Sissy--"not he."

"No, but I did think so.--Since then I've felt that, anyhow, it was not
fair. I suppose I was too proud to say so, or hardly knew how,
especially as the wrong is past mending. But I do ask your pardon now."

"You have it," said Percival. "We didn't understand each other very
well."

"But I never blamed you, Sissy--never, for one moment. I wasn't so bad
as that. I've watched for you now and then in Fordborough streets, just
to get a glimpse as you went by. I thought it was you who would never
forgive me, because of P