"You must be aware, Lord Hartledon, that your conduct does not merit pardon. As to friendship--which is what you ask for--it would be incompatible with the distance you and I must observe towards each other." "Why need we observe it--if you accord me your true forgiveness?" The question was one not easy to respond to candidly. The doctor could not say, Your intercourse with us might still be dangerous to the peace of one heart; and in his inner conviction he believed that it might be. He only looked at Val; the yearning face, the tearful eyes; and in that moment it occurred to the doctor that something more than the ordinary wear and tear of life had worn the once smooth brow, brought streaks of silver to the still luxuriant hair. "Do you know that you nearly killed her?" he asked, his voice softening. "I have known that it might be so. Had _any_ atonement lain in my power; any means by which her grief might have been soothed; I would have gone to the ends of the earth to accomplish it. I would even have died if it could have done good. But, of all the world, I alone might attempt nothing. For myself I have spent the years in misery; not on that score," he hastened to add in his truth, and a thought crossed Dr. Ashton that he must allude to unhappiness with his wife--"on another. If it will be any consolation to know it--if you might accept it as even the faintest shadow of atonement--I can truly say that few have gone through the care that I have, and lived. Anne has been amply avenged." The Rector laid his hand on the slender fingers, hot with fever, whiter than they ought to be, betraying life's inward care. He forgave him from that moment; and forgiveness with Dr. Ashton meant the full meaning of the word. "You were always your own enemy, Val." "Ay. Heaven alone knows the extent of my folly; and of my punishment." From that hour Lord Hartledon and the Rectory were not total strangers to each other. He called there once in a way, rarely seeing any one but the doctor; now and then Mrs. Ashton; by chance, Anne. Times and again was it on Val's lips to confide to Dr. Ashton the nature of the sin upon his conscience; but his innate sensitiveness, the shame it would reflect upon him, stepped in and sealed the secret.