“Forgive me, Hawkstone,” he said, “I have done you a great wrong, and I am sorry for it.”
“What’s the good in saying that? You can’t mend the wrong you have done,” and his head sank down again between his hands.
There was a pause. Barton felt that what had been said was true and not true. One of the most painful consequences of wrong-doing is that the wrong has a sort of fungus growth about it, and insists upon appearing more wrong than it ever was meant to be.
“Hawkstone,” he said at last, “I swear to you, on my honour as a gentleman, I have never dreamed of doing her an injury. I have been very, very foolish; I have come between you and her with my cursed folly. I deserve anything you may say or do to me. I care nothing about the waves; let them come. Take her with you up the cliff, and leave me to drown. It’s all I’m fit for. She will forget me soon enough, I feel sure, for I am not worth remembering.”
Hawkstone still kept himself bent down, his hands covering his face, and his body swaying to and fro with his strong emotions.
“You talk, you talk,” he muttered. “You seem to have ruined her, and me, and yourself too.”
“Not ruined her!” cried Barton, “I have told you, I swear to you. I swear—”
“Yes!” cried Hawkstone, springing up in a passion and towering above Barton, with his hands tightly
clenched and his chest heaving, “Yes! you are too great a coward for that. In one moment I could crush you as I crush the mussels in the harbour with my heel.”
Nelly threw herself upon him, “Jack, spare him, spare him. He meant no harm. Not now, not now! The sea, Jack, the sea! Save us, save us!”