“Will you still respect my secret, so far as you know it?”
“I shall make no promise,” Alick answered.
“At least, will you let me tell my story for myself?”
“There is nothing to prevent your doing that,” the other replied, “any more than there is to prevent my telling mine.”
“You are sternly uncompromising,” said Mr. Croft.
“I should be sorry to compromise with a seducer and a villain,” was the reply.
“You are talking at random, boy, on a matter concerning which you know literally nothing,” the person so politely addressed observed, sadly. “Had I spoken to an older man, as I have spoken to you to-night, I should not have been so repulsed.”
“Possibly not by an older man like yourself,” retorted Alick, with a sneer.
“Good-night,” said Mr. Croft, “we will not spoil our naturally sweet tempers by further argument. Here comes Ned. Shall we shake hands over it? No; good-bye then, and pleasant thoughts as you travel to town. Some day you will think you have not been all in the right in your judgment of me; but I do not quarrel with you for that judgment. It is human to err, and your humanity has erred, perhaps, on the safest side. On a safer side than mine, certainly,” he muttered, as Alick, jumping up beside Ned, took the reins, and, with a cold farewell to Mr. Croft, drove off at a rattling trot along Berrie Down Lane, and thence through Fifield to Palinsbridge.
As they passed Fifield church, the moonlight fell clear and cold on the mound of freshly-turned mould, which was heaped over the spot where Heather’s darling lay all alone, and the tears came welling up into Alick’s eyes when he thought of the dead child.