"It cannot, my dear. Nothing can be forgiven on that ground."
"No; we know that; we all feel sure of that. But yet how can one help loving her? For myself, I shall love her always."
"And I also love her." And then the old man made his confession. "I loved her well;—better than I had ever thought to love any one again, but you and Perry. I loved her very dearly, and felt that I should have been proud to have called her my wife. How beautiful she was in her sorrow, when we thought that her life had been pure and good!"
"And it had been good,—for many years past."
"No; for the stolen property was still there. But yet how graceful she was, and how well her sorrows sat upon her! What might she not have done had the world used her more kindly, and not sent in her way that sore temptation! She was a woman for a man to have loved to madness."
"And yet how little can she have known of love!"
"I loved her." And as the old man said so he rose to his feet with some show of his old energy. "I loved her,—with all my heart! It is foolish for an old man so to say; but I did love her; nay, I love her still. But that I knew that it would be wrong,—for your sake, and for Perry's—" And then he stopped himself, as though he would fain hear what she might say to him.
"Yes; it is all over now," she said in the softest, sweetest, lowest voice. She knew that she was breaking down a last hope, but she knew also that that hope was vain. And then there was silence in the room for some ten minutes' space.
"It is all over," he then said, repeating her last words.
"But you have us still,—Perry and me. Can any one love you better than we do?" And she got up and went over to him and stood by him, and leaned upon him.