"You cannot think me to be the same, can you?"
"Scarcely." He glanced at the timepiece. At best the interview was not pleasant to him, neither did he care to prolong it.
"You fear to lose the omnibus?"
"I have lost it. Your clock is slow. I am now about to start on foot to Jutpoint."
"Could they not send you in the dog-cart?"
"Thank you; I prefer to walk. The night is fine, and the road good. And I suppose I must be going."
She stood up as he moved, and held out her hand, her silk gown falling in folds from her shrunken form. He shook hands.
"God bless you; God prosper you here and hereafter!" she said with some emotion.
He hardly knew what to answer. To express a wish for her continued life was so palpable a fallacy, with those signs of decay before him: so he murmured a word of thanks, and gave the thin hand a friendly pressure as he released it.
But she did not release his. "It was not quite all I wished to say," she whispered, looking up to him with her sad eyes, in which stood a world of repentance. "I want to ask your forgiveness."