“It shall be as you wish,” he said, softly.
“You do not bear malice against me?”
“None whatever; but is not this better left, Mrs Mallow? Why should we refer so to the past?”
“Because,” she said, “I am so alone now, so wanting in help. You have become a great and famous man, whose word is listened to with respect and awe.”
“This is folly,” he said.
“Folly? Did I not see judge, jury, counsellors hanging upon your lips? did not your words condemn my poor husband this dreadful day?”
“I am afraid, Mrs Mallow,” he said, sadly, “that it needed no advocate’s words to condemn your unhappy husband. I would gladly have avoided the task that was, to me, a terrible one; but my word was passed, as a professional man, before I knew whom I had to prosecute. Speaking now, solely from my knowledge of such matters, I am obliged to tell you that nothing could have saved him.”
“Hush! Pray do not speak to me like that,” she cried. “He is my husband. I cannot—I will not think that he could do so great a wrong.”
“Far be it from me,” said Luke, gently, “to try and persuade you to think ill of him. I should think ill of you, Sage,” he added, very softly, “if you fell away from your husband in his sore distress.”
“Heaven bless you for those words, Luke Ross!” she cried, as she caught one of his hands and kissed it. “God will reward you for what you have done in coming to me now, wretched woman that I am, a miserable convict’s wife; but you will help me, will you not?”