“Indeed it has,” said Deering, bitterly. “I feel ten years older, and in addition to my great hopes being blasted, I know that in your eyes, and those of your wife, I must seem to have been a thoughtless, designing scoundrel, dishonest to a degree.”
“No, no, Mr Deering,” said Aunt Hannah, warmly, “nobody ever thought that of you.”
“Right,” said the doctor, smiling.
“I have wept bitterly over it, and grieved that you should ever have come down here to disturb my poor husband in his peaceful life, where he was resting after a long laborious career. It seemed so cruel—such a terrible stroke of fate.”
“Yes, madam, terrible and cruel,” said Deering, sadly and humbly.
“There now, say no more about it,” said the doctor. “It is of no use to cry over spilt milk.”
“No,” replied Deering, “but I do reserve to myself the right to make some explanations to you both, whom I have injured so in your worldly prospects.”
“Better let it go, Deering. There, man, we forgive you, and the worst we think of you is that you were too sanguine and rash.”
“Don’t say that,” cried Deering, “not till you have heard me out and seen what I want to show you; but God bless you for what you have said. Lee, you and I were boys at school together; we fought for and helped each other, and you know that I have never willingly done a dishonest act.”
“Never,” said the doctor, reaching out his hand, to which the other clung. “You had proof of my faith in you when I became your bondman.”