Lost in wonder, Catherine was for a few moments silent; but she at length said—
'Generous man, it must not—it shall not be. Bury me not—crush me not beneath a weight of generosity which from you I have been the last to deserve. I could not love, but I have ever esteemed you. I still do. But let not your feelings hurry you into an act of rashness. Time will heal, if it do not efface the wounds which now bleed; and you may still find a heart more worthy of your own, with whom to share the fortune of which you would deprive yourself.'
'Never! never!' cried he; 'little do you understand me. Your image and yours only was stamped where the pulse of life throbs in my heart. The dream that I once cherished is dead now—my grey hairs have awoke me from it. But I shall still be your friend—yea, I will be your husband's friend; and, in memory of the past, your children shall be as my children. Your husband's property is encumbered—throw these in the fire and it is again his.' And, as he spoke, he placed the deeds of the mortgage on a table before her.
'Hear me, noblest and best of friends!' cried Catherine—'hear me as in the presence of our Great Judge. Think not that I feel the less grateful for your generosity, that I solemnly refuse your offers, and adjure you to mention them not in my presence. As the wife of Edward Fleming, I will not accept what he would spurn. Rather would I toil with the sweat of my brow for the bare crust that furnished us with a scanty meal; and if I thought that, rather than share it with me, he would sigh after the luxuries he has lost, I would say unto him—'Go, you are free!' and, hiding myself from the world, weary Heaven with prayers for his prosperity.'
'Ye talk in vain—as I have said, so it is and shall be,' added he. 'And now, farewell, dear Catherine.'
'Stay! stay!—leave me not thus!' she exclaimed, and grasped his arm. At that moment her husband returned and entered the room—and you know the rest. But, Sir Peter Blakely was not mortally wounded, as the Solitary believed. In a few months he recovered, and what he had promised to do he accomplished.
"That is something new," said the fisherman who had found the manuscript; "and who told ye, or how do ye know?—if it be a fair question."
"I," replied he who had spoken, "am the Lewis to whom the paper was addressed."
"You! you!" exclaimed the fisherman; "well, that beats a'—the like o' that I never heard before."
"And I," said another, "am Sir Peter Blakely—the grey-haired dreamer—who expected the April lily to bloom beneath an October sun." And he put a crown into the hand of the fisherman.