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"It might have been forever thus, but Abraham came home. He is my brother, you know. If he made me suffer, he has been made to suffer with me. Bernard McKey was Doctor Percival's favorite. He made him his friend, and was everything to him that friend could be. I cannot tell you my story without mention of my brother, he has been so woven into every part of it.
McKey; and to Aaron's and Sophie's care Mr. Axtell committed her. Papa gave the letter to Miss Lettie. She read it in silence, and her face was immovable. I could divine nothing from it. Last March! how long the time seems! Scarce six months have gone since I gave the record, and now the summer is dying.
To-day I would wait for the morrow; on the morrow indecision came; and at last, when the intent was stronger than ever, when I had laid me down to sleep after an interview with Mr. McKey, solemnly promising Heaven that with the morning light I would confess all and leave the consequences with my God, in that night-time He sent forth His angel to gather in her spirit."
An unaccountable fancy for the study of medicine developed itself in his erratic nature soon after he came home; and he relinquished his brilliant prospects and devoted himself to the little white office near Doctor Percival's house, with Bernard McKey for his hourly companion.
McKey. It was he who, coming as a stranger, proved our best friend, whom mother and Abraham called Mr. Herbert. It was his hand lifted up for the last time my father's head just before he died. It was he who went to and fro making all needful arrangements for father's burial. At last we prepared to leave. He came to the steamer to say parting words.
I knew from the beginning that Bernard McKey ought not to be cared for by me; but could I help it? Now the veil of death, I believed, hung between, and the cup of my heart might be embalmed: the last change, I thought, had come to it, and left it as I that day found. "Chloe came around the corner, throwing her apron over her head. I called to her from the arbor.
Axtell must have told him something of me, for I had not been long there, when he, turning his large, luminous eyes from the coals, into which he had been peering, said, "Do you know the sweetness of reconciliation, young lady? If not, get angry with some one immediately." "I never had an enemy in my life, Mr. McKey," I replied.
As I looked at him, during our homeward drive, I repented not having said words of comfort, not telling him that I believed Bernard McKey was at that hour in my father's house; but I had not exceeded my instructions, by one word I had not gone beyond Miss Lettie's story. Until Mr. McKey chose to reveal himself, he must exist as a stranger.
Abraham would be home at sunset. "'Don't go, if it is only to please me, he said. "'I am going to please myself, I answered; 'only I wish to be at home on Abraham's coming. "That afternoon, Bernard McKey for the first time told me of himself, and what the two years in Redleaf had done for him. One month more, and he should leave it.
He had only left a note, stating the time of his return. "It was a week ere he came. Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no one deemed her very ill. "I dreaded Abraham's coming home, because he had left me in silent anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I did? No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, my brother, my answer first?
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