“Speak to him, Hetty,” Dinah said; “tell him what is in your heart.”
Hetty obeyed her, like a little child.
“Adam... I’m very sorry... I behaved very wrong to you... will you forgive me... before I die?”
Adam answered with a half-sob, “Yes, I forgive thee Hetty. I forgave thee long ago.”
It had seemed to Adam as if his brain would burst with the anguish of meeting Hetty’s eyes in the first moments, but the sound of her voice uttering these penitent words touched a chord which had been less strained. There was a sense of relief from what was becoming unbearable, and the rare tears came—they had never come before, since he had hung on Seth’s neck in the beginning of his sorrow.
Hetty made an involuntary movement towards him, some of the love that she had once lived in the midst of was come near her again. She kept hold of Dinah’s hand, but she went up to Adam and said timidly, “Will you kiss me again, Adam, for all I’ve been so wicked?”
Adam took the blanched wasted hand she put out to him, and they gave each other the solemn unspeakable kiss of a lifelong parting.
“And tell him,” Hetty said, in rather a stronger voice, “tell him... for there’s nobody else to tell him... as I went after him and couldn’t find him... and I hated him and cursed him once... but Dinah says I should forgive him... and I try... for else God won’t forgive me.”
There was a noise at the door of the cell now—the key was being turned in the lock, and when the door opened, Adam saw indistinctly that there were several faces there. He was too agitated to see more—even to see that Mr. Irwine’s face was one of them. He felt that the last preparations were beginning, and he could stay no longer. Room was silently made for him to depart, and he went to his chamber in loneliness, leaving Bartle Massey to watch and see the end.