Kenelm, from the depths of his noble and generous heart, forgave him.
“You did wrong me, Ronald,” he said to him one day; “but you have suffered so cruelly I forget the wrong in remembering the suffering,” and from that day they were again like brothers.
“There is one thing that grieves me,” said Sir Ronald, despondingly, to his friend, “when I die the title will be extinct, and the estates will pass to one who is a perfect stranger to me.”
“You will marry again,” said Kenelm. “You are young, and there is a broad stretch of life before you. You loved Clarice—I do not doubt it—but your heart is not buried with her, as mine is. You will marry, and make the old house glad with bright faces.”
“Never,” he said, moodily. “My one short dream of happiness faded long ago; it cannot revive.”
Mr. Eyrle wondered much.
“For my own part,” he said, musingly, “I live for but one object—to find out who did that deed, and bring them to justice. When that is done my life work is ended. Why, Ronald, I cannot understand your reason for not re-marrying.”
The white, haggard face was raised to his—the thin, worn hands.
“Do I look much like a man whose thoughts run upon marriage?” he asked, mournfully; and Kenelm was obliged to answer “No.”
But one spring morning (the grass had grown green on Clarice’s grave) there came to him a messenger of comfort—a little note containing only a few lines, but to that unhappy man they opened the gates of Paradise.