“I am that man!” said Justinian, looking at him with weak defiance. “Come now, where is your forgiveness?”
The Rector was deeply moved, and sat on the edge of the berth, with his hands clasped, and great drops of perspiration rolling down his pale face. A terrible struggle was going on in his mind, for it appeared to him almost impossible to forgive this man, who had wronged him so bitterly. Justinian, observer of human nature to the last, looked at him with a faint sneer on his dying lips.
“I thought you would not practise what you preached.”
“You are wrong! you are wrong!” cried the Rector, springing to his feet. “God forgive me! I should not have hesitated a moment. I do forgive you! I forgive you freely.”
Justinian was so moved to sudden emotion at this noble behavior on the part of the man he had wronged, that for the moment he was deprived of speech.
“I see there are some good men still on earth,” he said at length in a faltering voice. “Mr. Carriston, I thank you for your noble conduct, which has taken me quite by surprise. I acknowledge I have wronged you deeply, and cannot palliate my conduct, but I can and will make reparation.”
“My wife?” groaned the Rector bitterly.
“Is dead; but your son is by your side.”
The Rector turned suddenly round and found himself face to face with Crispin, whose countenance was as pallid as his own. They gazed for a moment at one another, suffocated with emotion, then, casting all restraint to the winds, fell into one another’s arms.
“You will find all the necessary papers to convince you of this truth with my lawyers in London,” said the Demarch, with evident pleasure at this meeting of long parted father and son.