* * * * *
[Sidenote: A Knocking at Nightfall]
What would have befallen me if I had been left long alone in that great
and evil city I know not, for I had no wits left to make any plans for
myself. At nightfall, however, there came once more a knocking, and when
I opened the door my father stood on the threshold. There seemed no
strangeness in his presence, and I fell into his arms weeping, so that
he, seeing how grievous had been my punishment, forbore to make any
reproach.
The next day began our journey home, and I have never since returned to
London; but when I got back to the place I had so foolishly left I found
it sadder than before. Many friends were gone away or dead. Some honest
lads, with whom I had jested at fair-times, hung withering on the
ghastly gallows by the wayside; others lay in unknown graves; others
languished in gaol or on board ship. My father's own brother, though his
life was spared, had been sent away to the plantations to be sold, and
to work as a slave.
It was some time before Tom Windham--that had, at considerable risk to
himself, sent my father to fetch me--ventured to settle again in his old
place; and for a long time after that he was shy of addressing me.
But I was changed now as much as he was. I had seen what the world was,
and knew the value of an honest love in it. So that, in the end, we came
to an understanding, and have been married these many years.
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