"Yes," he whispered, "if you bid me do so for her sake--her memory. Yes. If my honour is cleared, but not otherwise, for otherwise it would be useless. If Sir Geoffrey, or any other captain, will take me, I will go back, even though as a seaman before the mast. I will do it for her sake, in return for your gracious pity of me."
"Thank God!" she cried. "Oh, thank God!" Then she rose and went to the 'scrutoire and, opening it, took out the packet of letters that she had shown her husband. "Read them; do with them what you will. Read them now, if you desire." Whereon she put the little parcel in his hand, and, leaving him alone, went into the next cabin.
"My love, my lost love," he murmured, as he glanced at them hurriedly, not knowing that she had gone away to give him ample time for their perusal. "My sweet. And we are parted for ever. For ever! To all eternity. Nothing can bring you back to me."
That he had wept she knew when she returned, yet a man's tears for her whom he has loved and lost need no pardon from another woman's heart; and so she gently bade him take the letters and keep them, extorting only from him a promise that he would in no way endeavour to communicate with Lady Glastonbury.
"For that," she said, "must never be. Neither sorrow nor trouble must ever come to her again. Have I your promise?"
"On my word of honour. As a man--who was once a gentleman--I swear it, yet, oh God! it is hard. Hard to think that I can look upon her handwriting again and the words that are not addressed to me, although concerning me. It is so long," he added, his voice deep and broken, "since a line has come from her. Yet I have promised, and I will keep my word."
"I know it. I take and believe your word."
"But," Granger continued, "if--when you write to her, you could tell her that--that--born of these letters," and he touched his breast as he spoke, he having placed them there, "has come the promise of a better life for me--a life loveless, but no longer smirched and blemished--then I know she would be happier. If you could promise that!"
"I will do it," Ariadne answered, the tears again rushing to her eyes, and all her emotions thrilling at the sorrow and despair of the man before her. "I will do it."
And, now, Granger turned away, knowing there was no more to be said, yet inwardly blessing her who had that day been as a ministering angel to him.