Northcote carried the toil-stained hand to his lips with a reverence that was more profound than any he had ever felt for it before. “Every man needs to have known one truly good woman,” he said, strengthening his grasp of the roughened fingers, “before he can even begin his own education.” It darkened his eyes to see the muscles of the harsh face relax as they yielded to the slight softness of an infrequent emotion. “Your father was constantly making speeches like these,” she said, with that simplicity which was so formidable. “I was never able to understand them.” XXXVII INDELIBLE EVIDENCE For some time Northcote stood holding her hand and looking down into her eyes. A sense of deep wonder was percolating slowly to every part of his being. What a haven was here to embrace when the frail bark of his nature had been flung, like the cockle-shell that it was, upon the crest of tempestuous and multitudinous seas. How blind and undeveloped he had been not to have understood this before! From what ignominy could this anchorage have saved him! It would not have been necessary to founder upon the shoals had he been aware of this harbor that would have been so willing to embrace him. He was already broken into pieces; and those tears which appeared to suffuse his eyes with such facility and to suffuse hers with such a painful reluctance were falling from him. “You must ignore that unmannerly attack in the _Age_,” she said in a stern voice which yet was full of redress. “The enemies of the friendless have no kingdom into which they can enter. A few years hence, when you are a rich and honored man, you will forgive them for having once stabbed you.” The silence which followed her words was broken by the hard and intense breathing of the figure that clasped her. “There is one thing I shall ask of you,” said Northcote at last. “I shall ask you to give me the pledge from your own lips that you will always believe in me as completely as you do at this moment, whatever doubts, charges, or suspicion the future hurls against me.” “It is not necessary for me to give this assurance, but, since you demand it, I give it.” “It is part of my weakness to demand it,” said her son, “although none is so well aware as am I that there is no need to give expression to your faith.” “As you say, there is no need. But I remember your father saying to me shortly before that illness which was fatal to him, the greater the gifts the greater the lenity to be meted out to their unhappy possessors. On that account I have always treated you with more indulgence than otherwise I should have done.” “Had you been more Spartan you might have strangled the genie at its birth.” “I might.” “And yet made of its possessor a more upright and God-fearing citizen.” “That is impossible.” “You never could conceive of his being other than you see him now?” “I could not.” “Even if the indelible evidence were laid before you?”