"Indeed!—why?"
"I think you and I are best apart. We know each other far too well, by this time."
"Have patience with me, Sidney. I think not."
He drew a chair nearer his cousin, and sat down. He had not offered to shake hands with Sidney; he felt that his cousin would have resented that attempt; that he was regarded as a man who had done a grievous wrong, and from whom no professions of friendship or cousinly regard would be received. He had come with a faint hope of doing good—in some way or other, he scarcely knew himself; of extenuating in some way—almost as indefinite to him—the past conduct which had placed him in so sinister a light.
"Sidney," he said, "I wish that you had accepted that invitation to meet me which I made you. I could have explained much."
"No explanation, Maurice, would have been satisfactory to me at that time."
"Will it be now, then?" he asked, eagerly catching at the words which implied possibly more than his cousin had wished to convey.
"I would prefer dismissing the subject altogether," Sid replied. "If you will tell me candidly and honestly that you are sorry for the past, I will be glad to hear it—and believe it."
"You bear me no malice, then?"
"No—I have outlived it."