“Oh, Richard!” exclaimed his wife. “You ought to blame me—which no doubt you do. I have been more to blame than you have; but can you forgive me, my dear, honest husband?”
“Can I forgive you?” cried Ashbrook. “You ha’ bin a good wife for me for five long years, Patty. You have worked hard for me by day and by night. When I’ve come home weary, and oftentimes, it may be, a bit ruffled in temper, you ha’ always had a sweet word and a kind kiss for me; and do you think, my lass, that I ha’ any right to forget all that, and let a silly, foolish hour or so blot out the thoughts and memories of five good years? No, no, my gell. We’ve been both to blame; I ha’ bin more foolish and blind than what you ha’ bin.”
He took her in his arms and cradled her on his manly breast.
“Oh, Richard,” she ejaculated—“my own dear, good Richard!”
“It was more my fault than yourn,” cried Ashbrook—“a deal more my fault. I know that now. I put faith in this—this deceivin’ varmint. I left him with ’ee. I gave him good chances to pison your mind, and to draw your love from me to him for a little while. More fool me. But your love’s all come back agen now—aint it, lass?—and stronger and warmer and truer than afore, if that be possible, which somehow I doant think it can?”
She did not answer him. Her head was upon his shoulder, and her face was covered with her beautiful brown hair. She was still weeping, “but now her tears were tears of joy.”
“My dear Patty,” cried the farmer. “Heaven be praised! you’ve bin saved from the teeth of the wolf.”
CHAPTER CX.
MR. ERIC FORTESCUE AND HIS RESPECTABLE ASSOCIATES—THE CHALLENGE, AND THE RESULT.
Mr. Eric Fortescue, alias Alf Parvis, alias Mr. Algernon Sutherland, smarting with pain, and foaming with rage, made the best of his way to London after he had been ignobly expelled from Stoke Ferry farmhouse. He was in a terrible plight—was saturated with the dirty water which had been thrown over him by the girl Kitty, and his back and shoulders were black and blue from the blows that had been so mercilessly showered upon him by Ashbrook, but he contrived to reach the metropolis. For three days he preserved a moody silence, and shut himself up in one room from morning to night.