“How often do you see him?” demanded the accusing inner voice. “Not half a dozen times a year.”
The Duke of Kilkenty crouched down in his chair.
“I have been so busy,” he muttered.
“Adding to your millions? Crushing and grinding the poor? Finding flaws in old titles and driving people from their homes: cheating and defrauding and overreaching——”
“It’s true, it’s true,” he groaned. “Maddelina, I confess. And all I have gained from it is unspeakable loneliness.”
Resting his chin on his hand he sat and stared at the picture; as the hours dragged slowly by, all the years of his past life passed before him and he saw himself as he really was.
“Oh, Maddelina, is it too late?” he cried brokenly.
“No, no,” answered the voice of Maddelina, speaking from his own heart, “it is not too late, but you must begin at once. To-morrow you can be as much a power for good as you have been for evil. Where people have hated you, they will love you, and where they have cursed you, they will bless you.”
Just as dawn was breaking, he went back to his bedroom, taking with him Maddelina’s picture and her note. He had the bewildered feeling of one who has been walking against the wind and has suddenly turned and faced the other way.
He lay down and slept for some hours and at seven waked with a start.