“This good aunt has claims upon you already; of her I will not speak; but here,” taking the hand of Frances, and dwelling upon her countenance with an expression of fraternal affection, “here is the choicest gift of all. Take her to your bosom, and cherish her as you would cultivate innocence and virtue.”
The major could not repress the eagerness with which he extended his hand to receive the precious boon; but Frances, shrinking from his touch, hid her face in the bosom of her aunt.
“No, no, no!” she murmured. “None can ever be anything to me who aid in my brother’s destruction.”
Henry continued gazing at her in tender pity for several moments, before he again resumed a discourse that all felt was most peculiarly his own.
“I have been mistaken, then. I did think, Peyton, that your worth, your noble devotion to a cause that you have been taught to revere, that your kindness to our father when in imprisonment, your friendship for me,—in short, that your character was understood and valued by my sister.”
“It is—it is,” whispered Frances, burying her face still deeper in the bosom of her aunt.
“I believe, dear Henry,” said Dunwoodie, “this is a subject that had better not be dwelt upon now.”
“You forget,” returned the prisoner, with a faint smile, “how much I have to do, and how little time is left to do it in.”
“I apprehend,” continued the major, with a face of fire, “that Miss Wharton has imbibed some opinions of me that would make a compliance with your request irksome to her—opinions that it is now too late to alter.”
“No, no, no,” cried Frances, quickly, “you are exonerated, Peyton—with her dying breath she removed my doubts.”