"I know that was the cause, and also the cause of your whole life being spent thus, and also of this last attempted deed. And I had been searching for you for months before your father's death, plunging into every slum and dive of London. I promised to bring you back to your father, and thus prolong his days. Your name was the last he called upon in his delirium. I tried to find you, but failed."
Ande released his grasp, for it was unnecessary. Lanyan was weeping in an agony of remorse and wretchedness.
"But still the hour is not too late now to begin again in right paths, and rear up your family name to its former, ancestral honour. You can do it."
"I cannot," groaned Lanyan, all hatred and vengeance apparently gone from him. "I cannot; I have no money, and to live honestly in a poor position——No—No."
"I will help you. Come now, Lanyan, let us forget the past evils between our families. Oh, think how good God is to prevent you in the commission of a great crime, this night, that would blast your name irretrievably. God is better to us both than we deserve. He bestowed upon us these minds, these souls, and placed us in a beautiful world, and yet we abuse His gifts. Think, Lanyan, that you and I have souls to present upright and pure before the great God, the Father. It is a terrible thing to think that these passions, if we allow them to rule us here, by God's judgment, they shall rule us in the future. I confess that my hatred for you and yours has mastered me heretofore, but Parson Trant preached me a special sermon privately, when he asked me to seek you, and I have revolved it over and over again in my mind, and, with God's help, which I prayed for and received, my hatred is gone. If I had found you before, I should not have spoken to you in this way. I should have probably mentioned your father's desire to see you and left. Now it is different. Let the past be past, and here is my hand."
Lanyan grasped the hand extended to him and there was a wavering in his voice as he said:
"Trembath, you have a much better nature than I have. I must go."
"No, no," said Ande, detaining him, and he poured forth his plan, then and there, for the turning over of Lanyan Hall to Richard. This was conditioned on his reform.
Richard was to have possession of the ancestral place at a nominal rent, and when the rent would total the sum Ande had paid for it, the deed of complete ownership was to pass over to Richard.
There was silence for a moment.