He turned his head to Claire, who was gazing at him with burning eyes that seemed drained of the last tears.
“You always were a good, true girl to me, Clairy,” he whispered faintly, “and I want you to think well of me when I’m gone. I did this horrid thing, but I swear I have no recollection of it, and I never reaped a shilling advantage from the theft.”
The same feeling animated father and son in this time of peril—the desire to stand well in the eyes of Claire, who seemed to them as the whole world.
“Think the best you can of me, my little girl,” he whispered. “It will soon be over, and—there’s one comfort—I shall die as a soldier should—do you hear, Morton? No hangman’s rope to disgrace us more. I fell under fire, my lad, and I shall laugh at the judges, and prison, and scaffold and all.”
“Hush! for heaven’s sake, Fred!” cried Morton.
“Yes, I will. It’s too much—to talk. I was in a rage with them for shooting me. It was that bully—Bray; but I forgive him, for it saves us all from trouble and disgrace. Morton, lad, don’t stop in the regiment. Exchange—do you hear? Exchange, and get them away—Claire and May and the old man—to somewhere else when I’m dead.”
“Fred! Brother!” wailed Claire.
He smiled at her, and tried to raise her hand to his cheek.
“Yes, little girl!” he said tenderly. “It’s quite right. Cuts the knot—the hangman’s knot.”
There was a bitter, decisive tone in these last words, but he changed his manner again directly, and spoke gently and tenderly.