He scooted a little farther on and continued through the herb garden, abundant with parsley, and then around the trunks of the dwarf olive and fig trees, symbolically planted alongside one another. Then, rising, he walked a short distance to the small arbor of specialty grapevines and proceeded to pluck a few errant stringers.

Next to the rose garden, the area where he and his daughter now shared this solemn time was his favorite. Each plant bore a special significance. The bench they now passed he had placed here just for himself and Marion. When he came alone, he went to the rose garden. When he and Marion came together, they came here. There was nowhere on the entire estate that held as much significance for husband and wife, chiefly because of its reminder of the Master of them both and the land that had nourished him during his brief sojourn upon the earth.

At length he continued leisurely on up the hill. He was content to wait. He knew Sabina was thinking.

“Shouldn’t I still be upset?” she said all at once after a minute or two. Her tone was abrupt and tense, almost as if the quiet fury boiling away beneath the surface was directed at her father.

He did not answer immediately, but continued to walk on ahead of her.

“You had every right to be angry,” said the baron at length. “I was angry at Gustav myself for his treatment of you and Matthew also.”

“Then why do I feel so unsettled?”

“Perhaps because you have not yet properly dealt with your anger.”

“But how can I, after what Gustav did?”

“What someone else does cannot excuse our own responsibility, Sabina. Gustav’s misbehavior doesn’t remove from your shoulders the need to deal with this as Christ told us we must.”

“How is that?”

“Surely you don’t need me to remind you about forgiveness, do you, Sabina?”

“No, Papa.”

“Gustav’s wrong only increases the requirement on us to forgive. The higher truth is that we have been given an opportunity to allow the Spirit of Christ to flow through us. That is a far greater truth than whatever justification we may have to be angry.”

Sabina was quiet a long while, obviously thinking.

“I know you are right,” she said at length. “I don’t like to say it,” she added with an embarrassed tone, “but having to forgive someone feels like admitting you have done wrong—like I’m giving in to Gustav—and that is never pleasant.”

“Well, you did do wrong,” her father said, “in harboring your anger so long. Anger, held inside to fester, hurts you more than it hurts Gustav. And God knows that. So asking God’s forgiveness, even as you must forgive Gustav, is no empty gesture, but a genuinely necessary prescription for your own spiritual health.”

Sabina looked away.