"Thorndyke did."
"Ah!"
"Yes, the poor little thing had been rescued after a fashion. Soon after I left her, a fellow who had always had a liking for her, a chap who had worked in the shop with her, was willing to marry her and she consented. You wouldn't think she could, quite, with those eyes, but she did! The man was good to her; but the city, and other things, were too much, and she lived only a short time. There was a child! I wanted to do something for it; I had a passion of remorse then, but Thorndyke told me that the child's best interest lay in my letting her alone. She was respected and comfortable. For me to interfere would be to throw dishonor upon the dead mother and a cloud upon the child. All had been buried and forgotten in the mother's grave. About all I could do to better the business was to keep my hands off; and that I did!"
Devant's head drooped upon his chest, and Thornly felt a kind of pity that stirred a new liking for the man.
"You think the lawyer told you the true facts?" he asked; "true in every particular?"
Devant started up and turned deep eyes upon the questioner.
"Great heavens! yes. You do not know Thorndyke. He was about as cast iron an old Puritan as ever survived the times. He was devoted to our family, and served us to his life's end as counsellor and friend; but not for the hope of heaven would he have lied! No, that's why I confided in Thorndyke, I could not have trusted any one else. I knew he would never respect me afterward; he never did. But he served me as no one else could, and I bore his contempt with positive gratitude."
"But you could never forget?" Thornly spoke almost affectionately. The older man looked up.
"No. And as I grow older I thank God I never could. We ought not forget such things as that. We ought to expiate them as long as we live. I have grown to take a kind of joy in the hurt of the memory, a kind of savage exaltation in the suffering. So, perhaps, can I wipe out the wrong in this life and get strength of a better sort for the next trial on beyond, if there is another trial! I suppose every man wants to show, and live the best that is in him; not many get the chance here, from what I see. I reckon that is why we old fellows have an interest in you younger ones. It goes against the grain, if we have a sneaking regard for you, to see you quench the divine spark with the same galling water we've gone through. Going, Dick?"
For the other had risen and was holding out his hand in a confused but eager fashion.