It may
seem to her that she hears the faint cry, over and over:
"Mother, forgive me! God, forgive me!"
Chapter XXXII
At least, it may be claimed for George that his last night in the
house where he had been born was not occupied with his own
disheartening future, but with sorrow for what sacrifices his pride
and youth had demanded of others. And early in the morning he came
downstairs and tried to help Fanny make coffee on the kitchen range.
"There was something I wanted to say to you last night, Aunt Fanny,"
he said, as she finally discovered that an amber fluid, more like tea
than coffee, was as near ready to be taken into the human system as it
would ever be. "I think I'd better do it now."
She set the coffee-pot back upon the stove with a little crash, and,
looking at him in a desperate anxiety, began to twist her dainty apron
between her fingers without any consciousness of what she was doing.
"Why--why--" she stammered; but she knew what he was going to say, and
that was why she had been more and more nervous.
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