“So I think. The change is but temporary. He will not last out three days more, I fancy.”
“He has rallied wonderfully to-day,” I said; “but 'tis a passing rally; a flicker—no more. If you wish to do anything, now is the moment. If you delay, you will be too late.”
“I will go in and see him,” Hilda answered. “I have said nothing more to him, but I think he is moved. I think he means to keep his promise. He has shown a strange tenderness to me these last few days. I almost believe he is at last remorseful, and ready to undo the evil which he has done.”
She stole softly into the sick room. I followed her on tip-toe, and stood near the door behind the screen which shut off the draught from the patient. Sebastian stretched his arms out to her. “Ah, Maisie, my child,” he cried, addressing her by the name she had borne in her childhood—both were her own—“don't leave me any more! Stay with me always, Maisie! I can't get on without you.”
“But you hated once to see me!”
“Because I have so wronged you.”
“And now? Will you do nothing to repair the wrong?”
“My child, I can never undo that wrong. It is irreparable, for the past can never be recalled; but I will try my best to minimise it. Call Cumberledge in. I am quite sensible now, quite conscious. You will be my witness, Cumberledge, that my pulse is normal and that my brain is clear. I will confess it all. Maisie, your constancy and your firmness have conquered me. And your devotion to your father. If only I had had a daughter like you, my girl, one whom I could have loved and trusted, I might have been a better man. I might even have done better work for science—though on that side, at least, I have little with which to reproach myself.”
Hilda bent over him. “Hubert and I are here,” she said, slowly, in a strangely calm voice; “but that is not enough. I want a public, an attested, confession. It must be given before witnesses, and signed and sworn to. Somebody might throw doubt upon my word and Hubert's.”
Sebastian shrank back. “Given before witnesses, and signed and sworn to! Maisie, is this humiliation necessary; do you exact it?”