"My dear boy, (for such you still seem to me, notwithstanding the lapse of time,) let my little darling rest with her God. She went down early to her long home, and though I missed her sweet laugh, and her soft, tender hands about my face, and have felt a chill silence in my house, where music once was, she has been spared much suffering and many trials; and I would not recall her if I could, for after a few more days I shall gather her back to my bosom in that eternal land where the blighting dew of death never falls; where 'Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.'
Atone? Ah, St. Elmo! you can atone. Save your soul, redeem your life, and I shall die blessing your name. Look at me in my loneliness and infirmity. I am childless; you took my idols from me, long, long ago; you left my heart desolate; and now I have a right to turn to you, to stretch out my feeble, empty arms, and say, Come, be my child, fill my son's place, let me lean upon you in my old age, as I once fondly dreamed I should lean on my own Murray! St. Elmo, will you come? Will you give me your heart, my son! my son!"
He put out his trembling hands, and a yearning tenderness shone in his eyes as he raised them to the tall, stern man before him.
Mr. Murray bent eagerly forward, and looked wonderingly at him.
"Do you, can you mean it? It appears so impossible, and I have been so long sceptical of all nobility in my race. Will you indeed shelter Murray's murderer in your generous, loving heart?"
"I call my God to witness, that it has been my dearest hope for dreary years that I might win your heart back before I die."
"It is but a wreck, a hideous ruin, black with sins; but such as I am, my future, my all, I lay at your feet! If there is any efficacy in bitter repentance and remorse; if there is any mercy left in my Maker's hands; if there be saving power in human will, I will atone! I will atone!"
The strong man trembled like a wave-lashed reed, as he sank on one knee at the minister's feet, and buried his face in his arms; and spreading his palms over the drooped head, Mr. Hammond gently and solemnly blessed him.
For some time both were silent, and then Mr. Murray stretched out one arm over the slab, and said brokenly: "Kneeling here at Murray's tomb, a strange, incomprehensible feeling creeps into my heart. The fierce, burning hate I have borne him seems to have passed away; and something, ah! something, mournfully like the old yearning toward him, comes back, as I look at his name. Oh, idol of my youth! hurled down and crushed by my own savage hands! For the first time since I destroyed him, since I saw his handsome face whitening in death, I think of him kindly. For the first time since that night, I feel that--that--I can forgive him. Murray! Murray! you wronged me! you wrecked me! but oh! if I could give you back the life I took in my madness! how joyfully would I forgive you all my injuries! His blood dyes my hands, my heart, my soul!"