"Stop, Roger," he cried; "stop! I have sinned, but I have also been sinned against. I loved Ruth, ay, loved her like my own child; but Wilfred got me into his power, and then, like the devil he was, he made me do his will. Oh, I have suffered as well as you, more than you! He found out the one weak place in my life, as he found out everything else, and then he held me fast. Oh, I have waded through the blackest slime for him. But for his power over me I should have scorned to do what I did; I would have died before I would have taken advantage of her loyalty to her father's slightest wish; and now——"
"Now, because you had no mercy on her or on me, I shall have no mercy on you," I said. "Everything shall be made known, all your deeds shall be dragged into the light of day."
"No, no, Roger; she would not have done that. She forgave me everything, for at the last I confessed to her all that had been done. She suffered terribly at your departure, and more, I believe at the thought of wedding Wilfred, and yet she forgave me. Oh, I wish you had seen her at the last, so calm, so patient, and so beautiful. She loved you to the last, Roger, and one thought that cheered her in the hour of death was that she would soon see you again."
"Did she think I was dead?"
"She believed you died soon after you left home," he replied. But I did not believe him.
"And she loved me; did she confess it?"
"Not to me, but to the maid who was with her; her whole life and being seemed to be gone over to you; and thus it was that the thought of obeying her father's will killed her."
And I had been away from her all these years; I had been robbed of what was most dear. I was glad I had been revenged on Wilfred now, and the gladness was fiendish. This man, too, should reap as he had sown; as he had helped to make me suffer I would make him suffer. I knew that sooner or later my struggle with Wilfred would be made known, and that I should be suspected of his death; but I did not care, madness was in my heart again.
I burst forth with expressions of hatred and determinations of revenge, the old man still cowering meanwhile before me. Then he spoke.
"Roger, who are you that you should seek revenge? Is your life wholly pure and free from stain? Think, you, if you ruin my life by bringing me to disgrace, or if you destroy your brother Wilfred, that Ruth could welcome you to Heaven, if God should even allow you to go there? She died with the look of a glorified angel on her face; I wish you had seen her, you would not talk of revenge."