"Oh, papa, I ought not to have gone."
"Nay, my dear; do not say that. Would it make me happy that you should be a prisoner here for ever? It was only when I seemed to get so weak that I thought about it. I felt that it must be near when they bade me not to go to the cathedral any more."
"If I had been here, I could have gone with you, papa."
"It is better as it is. I know now that I was not fit for it. When your sister came to me, I never thought of remonstrating. I knew then that I had seen it for the last time."
"We need not say that yet, papa."
"I did think that when you came home we might crawl there together some warm morning. I did think of that for a time. But it will never be so, dear. I shall never see anything now that I do not see from here,—and not that for long. Do not cry, Nelly. I have nothing to regret, nothing to make me unhappy. I know how poor and weak has been my life; but I know how rich and strong is that other life. Do not cry, Nelly,—not till I am gone; and then not beyond measure. Why should any one weep for those who go away full of years,—and full of hope?"
On the day but one following the dean also reached his home. The final arrangements of his tour, as well as those of his wife, had been made to depend on Mr. Crawley's trial; for he also had been hurried back by John Eames's visit to Florence. "I should have come at once," he said to his wife, "when they wrote to ask me whether Crawley had taken the cheque from me, had anybody then told me that he was in actual trouble; but I had no idea then that they were charging him with theft."
"As far as I can learn, they never really suspected him until after your answer had come. They had been quite sure that your answer would be in the affirmative."
"What he must have endured it is impossible to conceive. I shall go out to him to-morrow."
"Would he not come to us?" said Mrs. Arabin.