Enter Dan’l Druce.
Master Druce, Heaven has interposed to save me from unwittingly working on thee a deep and bitter injury. Take the child that is thine own in the eye of God and of man. As she has been thy daughter hitherto, so shall she be thy daughter to the end!
Dan. (amazed). Why, sir—Dorothy, my child—is he not goin’ to take thee from me?
Jas. I have no right with her. She is thine, to bless thine old age, and to bring thee comfort to the very last.
Dan. Dorothy—my child—my child! (Takes Dorothy in his arms.) Oh, sir, I know not how to bless thee for this blessing!
Jas. Give me no blessing. I have done thee a wrong that is beyond the power of man to repair. Think of the deepest injury that man’s wickedness has ever wrought on thee, and place it to my account. (Dan’l thunderstruck.) If it lies within thee to extend the hand of pardon to him who laid waste thine home and made thy life desolate, read in my blighted life the punishment that the sin of my youth has brought upon me in my old age. As I have sinned, so before Heaven I have atoned!
[Exit Sir Jasper.
Dan. (as Sir Jasper’s meaning breaks upon him). Stay! come back—if this be not a devil-born dream, come back and hear me out. Oh, source of all the sorrow I have known! Oh, black and bitter curse of two poor lives! Thy life for hers—thy cursed life for hers!
Dor. Father, spare him—be merciful—be just. He is an old man now—thou art an old man—is it in the winter of your lives that the heart-burnings of hot youth are to be avenged? He has wronged thee, but he has suffered and will yet suffer. As I have prevailed to turn thee to mankind, so let me, thy daughter—thy daughter indeed—thine own flesh—her own flesh—prevail against this one surviving sorrow. Spare him and pardon him—for her sake and for mine! (Kneels.)
Enter Geoffrey.