Lord L’Estrange rose with a sudden start, gazed on Audley for a moment,—irresolute, not from resentment, but from shame. At that moment he was the man humbled; he was the man who feared reproach, and who needed pardon. Audley, not divining what was thus passing in Harley’s breast, turned away.
“You think that I ask too much; and yet all that I can give to the child of my love and the heir of my name is the worthless blessing of a ruined man. Harley, I say no more. I dare not add, ‘You too loved his mother! and with a deeper and a nobler love than mine.’” He stopped short, and Harley flung himself on his breast.
“Me—me—pardon me, Audley! Your offence has been slight to mine. You have told me your offence; never can I name to you my own. Rejoice that we have both to exchange forgiveness, and in that exchange we are equal still, Audley, brothers still. Look up! look up! think that we are boys now as we were once,—boys who have had their wild quarrel, and who, the moment it is over, feel dearer to each other than before.”
“Oh, Harley, this is revenge! It strikes home,” murmured Egerton, and tears gushed fast from eyes that could have gazed unwinking on the rack. The clock struck; Harley sprang forward.
“I have time yet,” he cried. “Much to do and to undo. You are saved from the grasp of Levy; your election will be won; your fortunes in much may be restored; you have before you honours not yet achieved; your career as yet is scarce begun; your son will embrace you to-morrow. Let me go—your hand again! Ah, Audley, we shall be so happy yet!”
CHAPTER XXXI.
“There is a hitch,” said Dick, pithily, when Randal joined him in the oak copse at ten o’clock. “Life is full of hitches.”
RANDAL.—“The art of life is to smooth them away. What hitch is this, my dear Avenel?”
DICK.—“Leonard has taken huff at certain expressions of Lord L’Estrange’s at the nomination to-day, and talks of retiring from the contest.”