"It was too late. She was gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest," said the lady.
"You need not—you need not—my heart is hard, but the dagger has pierced it at last. You need not drive in the steel: it has done its work," he rather gasped than said.
The lady felt that she had been too severe. His apparent insensibility had, it is true, irritated her almost beyond bearing, after all he had done, and after all that had been suffered for his sake.
"I am sorry if I give you pain. I ought to be sorry for you, not angry."
"Did she never mention me?" he asked, in a tone of agony. "And there was another, on whom her young heart doted, only too fondly. Did she never speak of either of us?"
"She spoke of both."
"Tell me what she said."
The lady hesitated.
"I pray tell me—I can bear it."
"I am afraid I have given you too much pain already. It is over now. Let it be over. Go home; and may God give you grace at the eleventh hour, and bring you and yours together again at last!" she said fervently, and the tears starting in her eyes.