“Indeed, I do want to repay it, sir,” rejoined Annie. “It’s anything but willing I shall be not to repay it. Indeed, there is no other way to get my soul free.”
Here it seems time I should mention that Hector, weary of waiting Annie’s return, had left the dining room to look for her; and running up the stair, not without the dread of hearing his mother’s foot behind him, had slid softly into his father’s room, to find Annie on her knees before him, and hear enough to understand her story before either his father or she was aware of his presence.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but indeed you must take it,” urged Annie. “Surely you would not be so cruel to a poor girl who prays you to take the guilt off her back. Don’t you see, sir, I never can look my father in the face till I have paid the money back!”
Here his father caught sight of Hector, and, perceiving that Annie had not yet seen him, and possibly glad of a witness, put up his hand to him to keep still. “Where is your father, then?” he asked Annie.
“In heaven somewhere,” she answered, “waiting for my mother and me. Oh, father!” she broke out, “if only you had been alive you would soon have got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over now; my master cannot refuse to set me free.”
“Certainly I will set you free,” said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal touched. “With all my heart I forgive you the—the—the debt, and I thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl—I mean, the most honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet.”
Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out:
“Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!”