Ferrars' counsel. He was the first to seek Mr. Kendal,
and dreadful to him as was the unaltering melancholy displeasure of
the fixed look, the steadily penetrating deep dark eyes, and the
subdued sternness of the voice, he made his confession fully, without
reserve or palliation.
It was more than Mr. Kendal had expected, and more, perhaps, than he
absolutely trusted, for Gilbert had not hitherto inspired faith in
his protestations that he spoke the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, nor had he always the power of doing so when overpowered by
fright. The manner in which his father laid hold of any inadvertent
discrepancy, treating it as a wilful prevarication, was terror and
agony; and well as he knew it to be the meed of past equivocation, he
felt it cruel to torture him by implied suspicion. Yet how could it
be otherwise, when he had been introducing his little brother to his
own corrupters, and conniving at his sister's clandestine
correspondence with a man whom he knew to be worthless?'
The grave words that he obtained at last, scarcely amounted to
pardon; they implied that he had done irreparable mischief and acted
disgracefully, and such forgiveness as was granted was only made
conditional on there being no farther reserves.
Alas! even with all tender love and compassion, no earthly parent can
forgive as does the Heavenly Father. None but the Omniscient can
test the fulness of the confession, nor the sincerity of 'Father, I
have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to
be called Thy son.
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