Agatha Webb Read Online Free PDF Page A

though it is likely he would have much
preferred his breakfast; and the young man led him into a little
sitting-room littered with the faded garlands and other tokens of
the preceding night's festivities.
    "I have an apology to make," Frederick began, "or rather, I have
your forgiveness to ask. For years" he went on, stumbling over his
words, though he gave no evidence of a wish to restrain them—"for
years I have gone contrariwise to your wishes and caused my
mother's heart to ache and you to wish I had never been born to be
a curse to you and her."
    He had emphasised the word mother, and spoke altogether with force
and deep intensity. Mr. Sutherland stood petrified; he had long
ago given up this lad as lost.
    "I—I wish to change. I wish to be as great a pride to you as I
have been a shame and a dishonour. I may not succeed at once; but
I am in earnest, and if you will give me your hand—"
    The old man's arms were round the young man's shoulders at once.
    "Frederick!" he cried, "my Frederick!"
    "Do not make me too much ashamed," murmured the youth, very pale
and strangely discomposed. "With no excuse for my past, I suffer
intolerable apprehension in regard to my future, lest my good
intentions should fail or my self-control not hold out. But the
knowledge that you are acquainted with my resolve, and regard it
with an undeserved sympathy, may suffice to sustain me, and I
should certainly be a base poltroon if I should disappoint you or
her twice."
    He paused, drew himself from his father's arms, and glanced almost
solemnly out of the window. "I swear that I will henceforth act as
if she were still alive and watching me."
    There was strange intensity in his manner. Mr. Sutherland regarded
him with amazement. He had seen him in every mood natural to a
reckless man, but never in so serious a one, never with a look of
awe or purpose in his face. It gave him quite a new idea of
Frederick.
    "Yes," the young man went on, raising his right hand, but not
removing his eyes from the distant prospect on which they were
fixed, "I swear that I will henceforth do nothing to discredit her
memory. Outwardly and inwardly, I will act as though her eye were
still upon me and she could again suffer grief at my failures or
thrill with pleasure at my success."
    A portrait of Mrs. Sutherland, painted when Frederick was a lad of
ten, hung within a few feet of him as he spoke. He did not glance
at it, but Mr. Sutherland did, and with a look as if he expected
to behold a responsive light beam from those pathetic features.
    "She loved you very dearly," was his slow and earnest comment. "We
have both loved you much more deeply than you have ever seemed to
realise, Frederick."
    "I believe it," responded the young man, turning with an
expression of calm resolve to meet his father's eye. "As proof
that I am no longer insensible to your affection, I have made up
my mind to forego for your sake one of the dearest wishes of my
heart. Father" he hesitated before he spoke the word, but he spoke
it firmly at last,—"am I right in thinking you would not like
Miss Page for a daughter?"
    "Like my housekeeper's niece to take the place in this house once
occupied by Marietta Sutherland? Frederick, I have always thought
too well of you to believe you would carry your forgetfulness of
me so far as that, even when I saw that you were influenced by her
attractions."
    "You did not do justice to my selfishness, father. I did mean to
marry her, but I have given up living solely for myself, and she
could never help me to live for others. Father, Amabel Page must
not remain in this house to cause division between you and me."
    "I have already intimated to her the desirability of her quitting
a home where she is no longer respected," the old gentleman
declared. "She leaves on the 10.45 train. Her conduct this morning
at the house of Mrs. Webb—who perhaps you do not know was most
cruelly and foully murdered last night—was such as to cause
comment and make her an