O, my father! He
who brought us so together in his own appointed time, chasteneth
every son whom he receiveth, and has thus proved his love and pardon
to your contrite heart, both on earth and in heaven, by the nature of
your chastisement and the healing balm at its close!"
At the end of this interview, so interesting and vital to the
happiness of both these newly-united parties, father and son, Sir
Robert motioned his blessing to that son by laying his hand gently on
his head, while the parental tears flowed on that now dear forehead--
for he could not then speak. He immediately withdrew, to leave
Thaddeus to repose, and himself to retire to pour out his grateful
spirit in private.
* * * * * * *
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE SPIRIT OF PEACE.
At dawn on the morning following the preceding eventful but happy
conference, Sir Robert, painfully remembering the frantic grief of
Pembroke on finding that Sobieski had not only withdrawn himself from
Harrowby, but had adjured England forever, and still feeling the
merited bitterness of the reproaches which his inexplicable commands,
dishonoring to his son, had provoked from that only too-long-
preferred offspring of his idolized Edith.--which reproaches,
unknowingly so inflicted by the desperation of their utterer, had
driven the guilty father to seek a temporary refuge from them, if not
from his own accusing conscience, under the then solitary roof of one
of his country seats in the adjacent county,--yet somewhat relieved,
as by the immediate mercy of Heaven, from the load of his misery, he
eagerly wrote by the auspicious beams of the rising sun a few short
lines to Pembroke, telling him that "a providential circumstance had
occurred since they parted, which he trusted would finally reconcile
into a perfect peace all that had recently passed so distressingly
between them; therefore he, his ever tenderly-affectioned father,
requested him to join him alone, and without delay, at Deerhurst.
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