“Look at you—like that?” said Vine slowly.
“Yes; your eyes seem so full of reproach. I tell you, my dear old fellow, that I would rather have died than that poor boy should have been prosecuted for my sake.”
“I know everything,” said Vine slowly. “I do not reproach you, John. I reproach myself, and at times it seems more than I can bear.”
“Louise,” said Van Heldre softly.
“Louise! Ah, Louise!” said Vine eagerly. “Without her I must have died.”
The two old friends sat, hand clasped in hand, in perfect silence for quite an hour before there was a gentle tap at the door, and Madelaine entered.
“He is so weak yet, Mr Vine,” she said, taking and separating their hands.
“Madelaine—my child!”
“Mr Vine may come again in the evening for a little while,” said Madelaine, smiling, as she bent down and kissed her father’s brow.
“So stern and tyrannical,” protested Van Heldre.