“You are mistaken,” was Ina's reply. “I am the one person he will never deceive again.”
Rhoda Gale received his visit: he did not beat about the bush, nor fence at all. He declared at once what he came for. He said, “At the first sight of you, whom I have been so ungrateful to, I could not speak; but now I throw myself on your forgiveness. I think you must have seen that my ingratitude has never sat light on me.”
“I have seen that you were terribly afraid of me,” said she.
“I dare say I was. But I am not afraid of you now; and here, on my knees, I implore you to forgive my baseness, my ingratitude. Oh, Miss Gale, you don't know what it is to be madly in love; one has no principle, no right feeling, against a real passion: and I was madly in love with her. It was through fear of losing her I disowned my physician, my benefactress, who had saved my life. Miserable wretch! It was through fear of losing her that I behaved like a ruffian to my angel wife, and would have committed bigamy, and been a felon. What was all this but madness? You, who are so wise, will you not forgive me a crime that downright insanity was the cause of?”
“Humph! if I understand right, you wish me to forgive you for looking in my face, and saying to the woman who had saved your life, 'I don't know you?'”
“Yes—if you can. No: now you put it in plain words, I see it is not to be forgiven.”
“You are mistaken. It was like a stab to my heart, and I cried bitterly over it.”
“Then I deserve to be hanged; that is all.”
“But, on consideration, I believe it is as much your nature to be wicked as it is my angel Ina's to be good. So I forgive you that one thing, you charming villain.” She held out her hand to him in proof of her good faith.
He threw himself on his knees directly, and kissed and mumbled her hand, and bedewed it with hysterical tears.