"A purpose in which I am not the only one engaged. Others are with me. You will know more presently. Do you see any change in me?"
"None. You are to me the same as when I last say you. Not a day older--not a day." He, also, glanced at the portrait for confirmation.
"That is many years ago now. I see a change in you. Your hair is white; you are an old man. Perhaps in another year you, too, will have passed away from among men. It will be well for you if you have sown no seeds of unhappiness, which may grow into life-miseries when you have gone. Even I, with no human ties, even I, who had no wife or child, would, if I could, live my time over again."
"Yet you were the merriest of all our company," said Mr. Weston, nerving himself by a strong effort to sustain his part in the conversation, gaining courage to do so from the wine, which he drank freely; "you can have no regrets."
"I have one." He looked toward the portrait of Stephen Viner with anger. "If I had known what was to occur through that man's villainy--if I had known the end of those two young lives, the melancholy fate of Caroline Miller and Edward Blair, I would have saved them despite the penalty I would have had to pay."
"How would you have saved them?"
"I would have killed the man," said Reuben Thorne, quietly, "who by his cruelty destroyed two innocent lives. I would have killed one to save two."
Mr. Weston scarcely heard these last words; a step upon the veranda drew his attention from Reuben Thorne. Again Michael Lee's voice was heard:
"Clarence Coveney."
A man fifty years of age entered, dressed as Reuben Thorne was dressed, in the fashion of a bygone generation. He bowed to Mr. Weston and took his seat.