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Firm but quiet, Philo’s tone resembled nothing of the hard man Joseph had known.
“I came to speak with you—”
“Go back to my daughter. ’Tis not safe for you here.”
Joseph held Philo by the arm and pulled him to the back of the barn, where their whispered communications would be even more shielded. Chest pumping, he opened his mouth and refused to close it until all he’d come to speak had been liberated.
“I will go back to Hannah, but not until I have the answers we seek.” He released Philo’s arm but continued to grasp the man with a stare that seemed to hold Philo motionless. “You knew I had the note. You had them pursue me, so why then come to my rescue? Why take the blame for something you didn’t do or even know about when you clearly despise me and want me nowhere near your daughter?” He stopped just enough for breath. “Philo, I have long since begged your forgiveness, as has Hannah. We did not formulate some plan behind your back. Aye, I purchased the foundry, but I did it for my own benefit and for the advancement of my skills as a blacksmith, not to lure her back to me. As for the rest, it simply happened. And I know you disapprove, but I—”
“I do not disapprove.”
The four words blew against Joseph and froze him as if he’d been gripped by an icy blast. The man could not be serious.
Rolling his shoulders back, Joseph’s brow crimped down. “You have always hated me.”
Philo’s gaze drifted downward as a sigh heavy with regrets breathed free from his mouth. “I did.” His stare swept up and circled Joseph in pleading. “But I was wrong.”
Confusion settled like a heavy fog. This was not the man Joseph knew. “I don’t understand.”
Even in the dark Joseph could see grief creasing in the corners around Philo’s eyes.
“I learned this night that all these years I had felt myself to be the one that was wronged…but I see now I was the one doing it.” He stopped, his voice fragile. “My regrets are a prison from which I cannot escape.”
Regrets? Hadn’t Philo always made it clear he’d wished them apart? He’d not seen much of the man since that awful day ten years past, but the cut in his soul had throbbed even so. Philo’s hurtful words never fully found refuge in forgetfulness. Joseph inhaled, but a deep breath could not blow away the clouds that grew ever more turbid.
Philo’s bereaved tone groped in the space between them. “I blamed you for what happened—both of you—because I feared more what others would think, when I should have embraced you.” His voice wavered. “All I can do now is beg your forgiveness and pray my daughter will as well, for I will never see her again in this life, and I have no one to blame but myself.”
The more Philo spoke, the more Joseph’s heart pulled apart at the seams, bulging with a dolor that even the deepest of hopes could not contain. The man was in earnest. “You say you have just come to see this now—how? How is it you make this change and choose in the final moments to take such a thing upon yourself? Philo, I do not understand. Hannah is beside herself with the pain of questions she has no answers to.”
“I suppose…” Philo looked away, a quick breath huffing from his mouth. “I suppose I have felt the tickings of change within me but was too prideful to admit my wrongs.” At that he looked to Joseph and rested a hand on his shoulder. “The pain I feel for having caused her too much sorrow destroys my soul. Now I can make it right.”
“By standing in our place of judgment?” Joseph pointed a rigid arm toward the rising gallows outside the far doors, straining to keep his volume from reaching past Philo. “You will die, Philo.”
“I know.” The resolve in his tone was serene, strong. Peaceful. “I must do it. My daughter deserves to have the happiness I denied her. She deserves a family—with the man she loves.” Philo looked away again, clearing his throat. “She told me of her child, your child.” Again he paused and coughed, his voice a fragile thread. “I had not known any of this. All I could see was my own suffering, my own selfish desires. I…I wish there was a proper way for me to beg your forgiveness. I hope what I offer you now is enough to prove the depth of my contrition.”
Joseph stilled, his entire frame numb as Philo’s entreaty and offered love reached out to cup his sorrowed heart, mending it with not only words but with sincerity as real as the blood that flowed within his veins. His throat thickened with hot emotion. Hannah must hear this. She must feel this love, this unspeakable peace—she needed it more than he.
He swallowed and took Philo at the wrist. “You cannot die.” Joseph turned back to the door, heart pulsing. There must be a way to save him. He turned back, staring at the man who by all accounts should despise him, but whose sincerity swelled so rich that Joseph believed he could bottle it and store it for times when he and Hannah wished to relive this memory.
Philo shook his head. “Do you expect if we attempted to escape now that we would not be caught?”
Gritting his teeth, Joseph refused just yet to relinquish the seedling thought, but Philo continued to cut it at the roots.
“If we fled, we would both be captured, both be killed, and what of Hannah then? The woman we both love would have no future at all.” He took Joseph by the shoulders. “I have placed my sins upon the altar, Joseph. I have sacrificed my pride and anger, and I have never felt such supernal freedom. ’Tis a peace I should have allowed myself so long ago. But now, and after I am dead, I will continue in that peace—if God, in His mercy, will see me into His kingdom.”
The voices out the door increased in volume, and both stiffened.
Philo pushed Joseph to the back door, speaking through closed teeth. “Go. You must leave now!”
“I will not leave before—”
“I shall get him right away, sir.”
The soldier’s voice outside the large barn doors was loud and strong. Panic-stricken, Philo shoved Joseph deeper in the shadows. “I will not have you taken.” He took the Bible from Joseph’s grasp and pressed it to Joseph’s chest. “Tell Hannah I love her.”
“Philo, please. There must be a way to—”
“Go to Ensign. I pray he lives.”
