If the drawer had been nobody's, there would have been no
wrong in looking into it! And what made it so very bad was that my uncle
was so good to me!
With the discovery came a rush of gladsome relief. Strange to say, with
the clearer perception of the greatness of the wrong I had done, came the
gladness of redemption. It was almost a pure joy to find that it was
against my uncle, my own uncle, that I had sinned! That joy was the first
gleam through a darkness that had seemed settled on my soul for ever. But
a brighter followed; for thus spake the truth within me: "The thing is in
your uncle's hands; he is the lord of the wrong you have done; it is to
him it makes you a debtor:--he loves you, and will forgive you. Of course
he will! He cannot make undone what is done, but he will comfort you, and
find some way of setting things right. There must be some way! I cannot
be doomed to be a contemptible child to all eternity! It is so easy to go
wrong, and so hard to get right! He must help me!"
I sat the rest of the day alone in that solitary room, away from Martha
and Rover and everybody. I would that even now in my old age I waited for
God as then I waited for my uncle! If only he would come, that I might
pour out the story of my fall, for I had sinned after the similitude of
Adam's transgression!--only I was worse, for neither serpent nor wife had
tempted me!
At tea-time Martha came to find me.
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