The memory, however, that nestled most
warmly in her heart was the assertion of Van Berg, "I NEED your
forgiveness." "How much does that mean?" she asked herself again
and again. "Does he really wish to be a friend, or is he only
trying to smooth over matters and calm me down so he can leave me
decorously, as after our hateful episode on the stage?"
Her wishes colored her thoughts. "He spoke too earnestly to mean
so little," she said to herself, with a dreamy smile that Van Berg,
as an artist merely, would have given much to see.
After all, perhaps one of the chief causes of her reviving spirits
was in the fact she was young. She could not take a very sombre
view of life that fresh summer morning, even in view of the past and
the future, and her manner of greeting Mr. Eltinge and of telling
her experiences since they parted suggested to him that she was
gaining in self-complacency, earthly hope, and youthful spirits,
rather than in the deep and lasting peace and moral strength which
is built up from the Living Rock. She was finding relief from
depression and suffering from causes as transient as they were
superficial. Chief of all, she had not realized as he had supposed
the shadow of the awful crime that was resting upon her, and the
need of God's forgiveness.
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