“Never!”
“Has he repented of his sin?”
“Yes.”
“Ask your own conscience if there is not a worthier life for you and your child than the life that you are leading now.” He waited, after that appeal to her. The silence remained unbroken. “Do not mistake me,” he resumed gently. “I am not thinking of the calamity that has fallen on me in a spirit of selfish despair—I am looking to your future, and I am trying to show you the way which leads to hope. Catherine! have you no word more to say to me?”
In faint trembling tones she answered him at last:
“You have left me but one word to say. Farewell!”
He drew her to him gently, and kissed her on the forehead. The agony in his face was more than she could support; she recoiled from it in horror. His last act was devoted to the tranquillity of the one woman whom he had loved. He signed to her to leave him.
Chapter LIII. The Largest Nature, the Longest Love.
Mrs. Presty waited in the garden to be joined by her daughter and Captain Bennydeck, and waited in vain. It was past her grandchild’s bedtime; she decided on returning to the house.