Trembling like a wind-blown leaf, she came at his call, and knelt down at his side with a great pity shining in her soft blue eyes.
The dying man's gaze dwelt on her for a moment, drinking in all the sweetness and fairness of the face he loved, and which he was losing forever.
"My wife," he murmured, in hollow, broken accents, "do you not—see—I—was—not wholly—to blame? A—fiend's—work—goaded me—on! She has—had—her revenge. But—it—might have been—so different—if I had known. Bonnibel, forgive!"
She took his hand in hers and bent her face lower over him, with all the divine pity and forgiveness of a tender woman shining in the eyes that were brimming over with tears.
"I am sorry it all fell out so," she said, very gently, "and I forgive all—as freely as I hope to be forgiven."
A beam of love and gratitude flashed over his features an instant; then it faded out in the grayness and pallor of death. Bonnibel turned away, and hid her face on the shoulder of the faithful Lucy.
"It's all over, my poor darling. Shall we go away now?" Lucy whispered.
"We must go back to his home with him, Lucy. We must show him the last tribute of respect. I have forgiven him. He was more sinned against than sinning," she murmured back.
So when the mournful funeral cortege moved from the gates of his stately home, Colonel Carlyle's darling, whom he had so passionately loved despite his jealous madness, went down to the portals of the grave with him, and saw all that was mortal of Clifford Carlyle laid away in the kindred dust.