Then they saw Esther Bright's eyes flash. Her face grew as stern as the granite hills of her native state. She spoke slowly, and each word—as Dr. Mishell afterwards said—seemed to weigh a ton apiece.
"Your family?" she said. "Your family?" she repeated with scorn. "Your family? This girl is a child of God!"
And turning, she left the shack.
Jack Harding remained all through the night, talking and praying, at intervals, with Clifton.
At dawn, the sick man cried out again and again:
"God be merciful to me a sinner!"
Then, at last, he said:
"Jack, I want to atone for my wrong to Miss Earle as much as I can. I see it all now. Send for a clergyman. I can't live, I know. If Miss Earle becomes my wife, it will remove the stigma, and she will inherit a fortune willed to me. Send for her. Perhaps she will forgive me, before I die."
At the sunset hour, word passed throughout the village that Mark Clifton had just died, and that before his death he had been married to Carla Earle. The clergyman who attended the dying man wrote to his parents, telling them of their son's marriage and death, and of his farewell messages to them. He added: