“Kill me,” he said, quietly, to Peyton.
His look, innocent of any thought to draw compassion, quite disarmed Harry, who stood for a moment 280 with moistening eyes and a kind of welling-up at the throat, then said, in a rather unsteady voice:
“No, sir! God knows I’ve taken enough from you,” and he looked at Elizabeth, who had risen and was standing near him. Softened by the triumphant outcome for her love, she, too, was suddenly sensible of the defeated man’s unhappiness, and her eyes applauded and thanked Harry.
“You’ve taken what I never had,” said Colden, with a chastened kind of bitterness, “yet without which the life you give me back is worthless.”
“Make it worth something with this,” and Peyton held Colden’s sword out to him.
“What! You will trust me with it?” said Colden, amazed and incredulous, taking the sword, but holding it limply.
“Certainly, sir!”
Colden was motionless a moment, then placed his arm high against the doorway, and buried his face against his arm, to hide the outlet of what various emotions were set loose by his enemy’s display of pity and trust.
Harry gently drew Elizabeth to him and kissed her. Yielding, she placed her arms around his neck, and held him for a moment in an embrace of her own offering. Then she withdrew from his clasp, and when Colden again faced them she had resumed that invisible veil which no man, not even 281 the beloved, might pass through till she bade him.
“You will find me worthy of your trust, sir,” said Colden, brokenly, yet with a mixture of manly humility and honorable pride.[10]