Gilbert still stood with his
hand clasped in Albinia's, and she held it while her weak voice made
the full confession for him, and assured his father of his shame and
sorrow. There needed no such assurance, his whole demeanour had been
sorrow all these dreary days, and Mr. Kendal could not but forgive,
though his eye spoke deep grief.
'I could not refuse pardon thus asked,' he said. 'Oh, Gilbert, that
I could hope this were the beginning of a new course!'
Albinia looked from Gilbert to his little brother, and back again to
Gilbert.
'It _shall_ be,' she said, and Gilbert's resolution was perhaps the
more sincere that he spoke no word.
'Poor boy,' said Albinia, half to herself and half aloud, 'I think I
feel more strong to love and to help him!'
That interview was a dangerous experiment, and she suffered for it.
As her brother said, instead of having too little life, she had too
much, and could not let herself rest; she had never cultivated the
art of being still, and when she was weak, she could not be calm.
Still the strength of her constitution staved off the nervous fever
of her spirits, and though she was not at all a comfortable patient,
she made a certain degree of progress, so that though it was not easy
to call her better, she was not quite so ill, and grew less
irrational in her solicitude, and more open to other ideas. 'Do you
know, Winifred,' she said one day, 'I have been thinking myself at
Fairmead till I almost believed I heard John Smith's voice under the
window.
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