Woe for the days when childhood knelt
At night and morn its prayer to say;
Breathed worship such as childhood felt,
And loved the vows it learned to pay!
But now—but now—can phrenzy pray?
To Heaven shall desperation cry?
Madness prepares destruction's way—
Escape is none—despair, and die!
"That," said Rereworth, when Randolph gave him back the paper, "is the superficial penitence, which never does any good. It is regret for the effects of the fault, not for the fault itself. In true repentance there is always hope, but in such feelings as are here portrayed there is little else than despair. Hence this miserable end."
"Yet," Randolph urged, with some discontent at the moralizing of his friend, "he seems to have been meant for better things."
"Few men are not," answered Rereworth. "Few men are not meant for better things than they achieve. Short-coming is the rule, and fulfilling the exception. But a truce with what sounds misanthropical. Here we are at Winter's."
The lawyer heard of the suicide with much commiseration.
"But," said he, "our feelings must not interfere with business. This confession, verified by you, Mr. Rereworth, ought to carry us to the bottom of the matter. I wish we could get at the true circumstances of the marriage. You see the real insinuation is, that the late Mr. Trevethlan was privy to the death of Ashton, and the spiriting away of the witness. I wish, with all my heart, we could clear up the mystery."
And Randolph felt that there could be no rest for him until the entire groundlessness of so dark an impeachment was made clear to all the world.