"There is justice done," said Anne, "it is over now. I acknowledge the weakness, Mrs. Catherine; but he has suffered dreadfully. A gentle, delicate, pensive spirit, unfit for storms and trials--altogether unfit for doing any great thing: one to be supported and tenderly upheld--not to take any bold step alone." "Suffered!" Mrs. Catherine rose and walked through the room, till the boards, less solid than those of the Tower, quaked and sounded below her feet. "Wherefore did he not come forth in the light of day, and bear his own burden? Good fame and honor--land and home--what was he that a just man should lay down these for him?" "He was a feeble, delicate, dependant spirit," said Anne: "one of those whom it is our natural impulse to defend and suffer for. That was his only claim; but you know how strong that is." Mrs. Catherine did know, but she felt no sympathy for the shrinking weakness which could suffer another to bear its own just punishment. "I know? Yes, I know; but what claim has the like of such a weakling to call himself a man? Eighteen years--eighteen long, slow years--all Alice Aytoun's lifetime. Anne, I marvel you can bear with his memory, or lift up your face to me, and speak of him as kindred. He shed this blood unawares, said you? Did he doom Norman to this death unawares? was it without his knowledge that he laid this blight upon the two that have borne banishment for him? Speak not to me of this coward, child. I say, mention not his name to me." "Mrs. Catherine," said Anne, "bear with me till you hear his story. If you had seen him as I have seen--if you had listened to Christian as I have listened, you too would mourn over this blighted, broken man, less in his death than in his life. When Norman fled, he was in an agony of fever and madness, unconscious of what was passing round him--only aware in his burning horror and grief that he had shed blood. When he recovered--and most strange it was that he should have recovered--most strange the tenacious life and strength of his feebleness--he heard of Norman's sacrifice; and then I acknowledge he ought to have done justice, had not his weakness overpowered him. He dared not face the terror and the shame; perhaps the dreadful death due to his blood-guiltiness, and so he lived on--such a life as few have ever lived in this world--a life of despair, and gloom, and misery: terrible to hear of--more terrible to see." Mrs. Catherine seated herself again. "And the sister and the righteous man, his friend, bearing a dark name for him over the sea; and the sad woman at home, that you have told me of, wearing out her days for him. Was his miserable life worth that, think you? Should that not have been worse than any death?"