Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/94

84 perhaps, turned out from the only roof that can cover them. She bowed her head and burst into tears. Henry saw the grey of her hair and the roughness of her hands; every eye from the stern young faces around the room denounced him. He stood like a thief in the dock. What! rob them of a hundred a year, take the food from their mouths, and the clothes from their backs! And that poor mother, how her sobs killed him! He put his hand upon her shoulder. "Don't cry," he said; "of course, I never meant to go."

He left the house hastily and strode with quick steps along the river bank. He passed by Mollie as she sat waiting for him, but did not speak. He bent his head upon his breast, and she saw how it was, and wept for him when he had gone.

"Yet he would have forgotten me," she said; and then, "Oh, how selfish I am! Poor fellow! how he will suffer!"

But Henry did not suffer as keenly as she imagined; his was a nature to dream, and not to do. He suffered less, after the first disappointment, by being deprived of the action than if he had been denied the right to dream of being