"The times are indeed changed, and many things have happened since those days. But at least, madam, tell me how is my brother, Jules D'Haberville?"
"He whom you once called your brother, sir, is now, I hope, out of danger."
"Thank God!" answered Lochiel, "now all hope is not utterly dead in my heart! If I were speaking to an ordinary person there would be nothing more for me to do but thank you for your condescension and retire; but I have the honor to address the sister of a brave soldier, the inheritor of a name made illustrious by many heroic deeds; and if madam will permit, if she will forget for a moment the ties which bind me to her family, if she will judge impartially between me and that family, then I might dare attempt, with some hope of success, to justify myself before her."
"Speak, M. de Lochiel," replied the superior, "and I will listen, not as a D'Haberville but as a stranger. It is my duty as a Christian to hear impartially anything that might palliate your barbarous and heartless conduct toward a family that loved you so well."
The sudden flush which covered the young man's face was followed by a pallor so ghastly that the superior thought he was about to faint. He grasped the grating between them with both hands, and leaned his head against it for some moments; then, mastering his emotion, he told his story as the reader already knows it.
Archie went into the most minute details, down to his misgivings when his regiment was ordered to leave for Canada, down to the hereditary hatred of the Montgomerys for the Camerons; and he accused himself of cowardice in not having sacrificed even his honor to the gratitude he owed the D'Habervilles. From the utterance of Montgomery's barbarous order he omitted not the smallest incident. He described the anguish of his despair, his curses, and his vows of vengeance against Montgomery. In painting the emotions which had tortured his soul, Lochiel had small need to add anything in the way of justification. What argument could be more eloquent than the plain story of his despair! Lochiel's judge was one well fitted to understand him, for she it was who in her youth had one day said to her brother Captain D'Haberville: "My brother, you have not the means to worthily sustain the dignity of our house, except with the help of my share of the patrimony. To-morrow I enter a convent. Here is the deed wherein I renounce all claim in your favor."
The good woman had heard Archie's story with ever-increasing emotion. She stretched out her clasped hands to him as he described his anguished imprecations against Montgomery. The tears flowed down her cheeks as he described his remorse and his resignation while, bound to the tree, he awaited a hideous death.
"My dear Archie," exclaimed the holy woman.
"Oh! thank you, thank you a thousand times for those words," cried Lochiel, clasping his hands.
"My dear Archie," exclaimed the superior, "I absolve you with all my heart. You have but done your painful duty in obeying your orders. By any other course you would have destroyed yourself irretrievably without preventing the ruin of our family. Yes, I forgive you freely, but I hope that you will now pardon your enemy."