“I did it!” he repeated.
Constance took his hand and kissed it.
“I am Langley’s child,” she said. “In his name you are forgiven. Oh, the long punishment is over! Oh, we have all forgiven you! Oh, you have suffered so long—so long! At last—at last—forgive yourself!”
Then a strange thing happened. It happens often with the very old that in the hour of death there falls upon the face a return of youth. The old man’s face became young; the years fell from him; but for his white hair you would have thought him young again. The hard lines vanished with the crow’s-feet and the creases and the furrows; the soft colour of youth reappeared upon his cheek. Oh, the goodly man—the splendid face and figure of a man! He stood up, without apparent difficulty; he held Constance by the hand, but he stood up without support, towering in his six feet six, erect and strong.
“Forgiven?” he asked. “What is there to be forgiven? Forgive myself? Why? What have I done that needs forgiveness? Let us walk into the wood, Langley—let us walk into the wood. My dear, I do not understand. Langley’s child is but a baby in arms.”
His hand dropped. He would have fallen to the ground but that Leonard caught him and laid him gently on the chair.
“It is the end,” said Constance. “He has confessed.”
It was the end. The Recluse was dead.
CHAPTER XXI
THE WILL
ONE of the London morning papers devoted a leading article to the subject of the modern Recluse. The following is a passage from that excellent leader: