'Pshaw! Do you think I meant that? I mean that if my father hadn't heaped up all that gold—bah! the word makes me sick,—and denied me a sixpence whilst he lived; and if I hadn't seen my mother rob him whenever she could, and learnt from her to do the same, I shouldn't be here now! No, I should be a plodding shopkeeper, or at least a country lawyer, or doctor, and should have been living in a house with three steps to it, and a portico, by this time, with—don't suppose I regret such a house—but Netta! oh, God! Netta!'
Howel beat his forehead with his hand, and pointed to the corner of his cell.
'There she is! there she has been all the night. Pale as when I laid her on her bed that miserable day!'
'Howel! you loved Netta, I see, and believe it now,' said Rowland.
'You do! And why not before? Ah! I see. Because I have never done anything to prove it. But I did not know how I loved her until I knew how she loved me.'
'Would you prove it now, if you could?'
'Would I? Why do you mock me by such a question?'
'Because she, being dead, yet speaks. Her last wishes, thoughts, words, writing, were for you.'
'Do I not know it? Have I not read? All night have her words not haunted me?'
'And her prayers, Howel? Shall they be forgotten? And that Book in which she wrote last, will you not read it?'