"But it was not Russians!—If it had been, I could have borne it.—That was all in my bargain,—the fair chance of war: but to be shut up by a mistake!—at the very outset, too—by a boorish villain of a khan, on a drunken suspicion;—a fellow whom I was trying to serve, and who couldn't, or wouldn't, or daren't understand me—Oh, Grace, I was caught in my own trap! I went out full blown with self-conceit. Never was any one so cunning as I was to be!—Such a game as I was going to play, and make my fortune by it!—And this brute to stop me short—to make a fool of me—to keep me there eighteen months threatening to cut my head off once a quarter, and wouldn't understand me, let me talk with the tongue of the old serpent!"
"He didn't stop you: God stopped you!"
"You're right, Grace; I saw that at last! I found out that I had been trying for years which was the stronger, God or I; I found out I had been trying whether I could not do well enough without Him: and there I found that I could not, Grace;—could not! I felt like a child who had marched off from home, fancying it can find its way, and is lost at once. I felt like a lost child in Australia once, for one moment: but not as I felt in that prison; for I had not heard you, Grace, then. I did not know that I had a Father in heaven, who had been looking after me, when I fancied that I was looking after myself;—I don't half believe it now—If I did, I should not have lost my nerve as I have done!—Grace, I dare hardly stir about now, lest some harm should come to me. I fancy at every turn, what if that chimney fell? what if that horse kicked out?—and, Grace, you, and you only, can cure me of my new cowardice. I said in that prison, and all the way home,—if I can but find her!—let me but see her—ask her—let her teach me; and I shall be sure! Let her teach me, and I shall be brave again! Teach me, Grace! and forgive me!"
Grace was looking at him with her great soft eyes opening slowly, like a startled hind's, as if the wonder and delight were too great to be taken in at once. The last words unlocked her lips.
"Forgive you? What! Do you forgive me?"
"You? It is I am the brute; ever to have suspected you. My conscience told me all along I was a brute! And you—have you not proved it to me in this last minute, Grace?—proved to me that I am not worthy to kiss the dust from off your feet?"
Grace lay silent in his arms: but her eyes were fixed upon him; her hands were folded on her bosom; her lips moved as if in prayer.
He put back her long tresses tenderly, and looked into her deep glorious eyes.
"There! I have told you all. Will you forgive my baseness; and take me, and teach me, about this Father in heaven, through poverty and wealth, for better, for worse, as my wife—my wife?"
She leapt up at him suddenly, as if waking from a dream, and wreathed her arms about his neck.
"Oh, Mr. Thurnall! my dear, brave, wise, wonderful Mr. Thurnall! come home again!—home to God!—and home to me! I am not worthy! Too much happiness, too much, too much:—but you will forgive, will you not,—and forget—forget?"
And so the old heart passed away from Thomas Thurnall: and instead of it grew up a heart like his father's; even the heart of a little child.