But you see how I am. You
must think I am kneeling at your feet."
"But why?" asked Aurora, with a little distress.
"To ask you to forgive me for being a hindrance. I want pardon before I
go. But I found him half dead on the door-step. What could I do? When I
had seen him, I loved him. I knew that he thought of you. That was all
he remembered--just your name, and I hated it, because he had forgotten
all other names, even his own, and his mother, and everything. He was
like a little child that learns, to-day this, to-morrow that, one thing
at a time. What could I do? I taught him. I also taught him to love
Regina. But when the memory came back, I knew how it had been before."
Her voice broke and she coughed, and raised one hand to her chest.
Aurora supported her tenderly until it was over, and when the weary head
sank back at last it lay upon the young girl's willing arm.
"You are tiring yourself," Aurora said. "If it was to ask my forgiveness
that you wished me to come, I forgave you long ago, if there was
anything to forgive. I forgave you when we met, and I saw what you were,
and that you loved him for himself, just as I do."
"Is it true? Really true?"
"So may God help me, it is quite true. But if I had thought it was not
for himself--"
"Oh, yes, it was," Regina answered. "It was, and it is, to the end. Will
you see? I will show you. For what the eyes see the heart believes more
easily.
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