For his boy 's sake he must cleanse his name from the dishonour he had brought on it . Oh , thank God , there was somebody to care , somebody to love him , somebody to believe him when he said humbly , `` I repent . '' Under his breath he said , looking heavenward : `` God be merciful to me , a sinner . '' Then he stood up erectly , went through the gate and over the grass to the motionless little figure with its face buried in its arms . `` Joey boy , '' he said huskily . `` Joey boy . '' Joey sprang to his feet with tears still glistening in his eyes . He saw before him a bent , grey-headed man looking at him lovingly and wistfully . Joey knew who it was -- the father he had never seen . With a glad cry of welcome he sprang into the outstretched arms of the man whom his love had already won back to God . The Schoolmaster 's Letters At sunset the schoolmaster went up to his room to write a letter to her . He always wrote to her at the same time -- when the red wave of the sunset , flaming over the sea , surged in at the little curtainless window and flowed over the pages he wrote on . The light was rose-red and imperial and spiritual , like his love for her , and seemed almost to dye the words of the letters in its own splendid hues -- the letters to her which she never was to see , whose words her eyes never were to read , and whose love and golden fancy and rainbow dreams never were to be so much as known by her . And it was because she never was to see them that he dared to write them , straight out of his full heart , taking the exquisite pleasure of telling her what he never could permit himself to tell her face to face . Every evening he wrote thus to her , and the hour so spent glorified the entire day . The rest of the hours -- all the other hours of the commonplace day -- he was merely a poor schoolmaster with a long struggle before him , one who might not lift his eyes to gaze on a star . But at this hour he was her equal , meeting her soul to soul , telling out as a man might all his great love for her , and wearing the jewel of it on his brow . What wonder indeed that the precious hour which made him a king , crowned with a mighty and unselfish passion , was above all things sacred to him ? And doubly sacred when , as tonight , it followed upon an hour spent with her ? Its mingled delight and pain were almost more than he could bear .
He went through the kitchen and the hall and up the narrow staircase XXXXX a glory in his eyes that thus were held from seeing his sordid surroundings .
Under above because for in into of over through with