“But if, lady, your first husband and true lover had, by some wondrous chance, returned, as it might be, from the very grave, and you were satisfied that it was he indeed, and knew him, although he knew _you_ not, and he was living a bad life among bad company, with no one in all the world to call him friend, would you not then have held your arms out to him, and cried: 'Come back, come back!' and told him how you had loved him all along?” “No, sir; not so. If I had been alone, like him, with only my own feelings to consult, I might, indeed, have so behaved; for my heart would have yearned towards him, as it does, Heaven knows, even now. But, sir, in such a case there would not only have been Love to be obeyed, but Duty. If this man were living the wild life you speak of, would he not have made a bad father to my poor children (left in my sole charge and guardianship by a just and noble man), an evil ruler of a well-ordered house, a bad example to all whom I would have had respect him? Nay, worse, would not my acknowledgment of him--which I should otherwise be eager to make, and willing to take upon myself the shame that might accrue to _me_ therefrom--would not that, I say, have brought disgrace on those who had earned it not--have made my own children, lawfully begotten, as I had thought, all Bastards, and soiled the memory of an honest man, their father?” A long silence here ensued, broken only by the sick man's painful breathing, and the sobs of Mistress Forest, who strove in vain to restrain her tears. “I thank you, Madame,” said Ralph very feebly: “you have been pleading without knowing it for one who---- Do you see these tears? I did not think to ever weep again. Either your gentle voice--reminding me of the very woman of whom I had meant to speak so harshly--or perhaps it is the near approach of death which numbs these fingers, that would else be clutching for their revenge--I know not; but I now wish no one harm.--Doctor, you must feed this flame once more; let me but speak a very few words, and then I shall have no more use for Life.--Mary, good wench, come here. You will shortly see again that mistress whom you love so well, and have so honestly served. Tell her--- Nay, don't cry; I do not need your tears to assure me that you feel for poor Ralph Gavestone--castaway though he be. I heard your 'Thank God' when the doctor said (though he was wrong there) that there was hope for me. Those were very honest words, Mary.” “I did not say them!” ejaculated the waiting-maid earnestly. “O Madame, tell him who it was that said them.” “It was _I_,” murmured Madame de Castellan, coming close to the bedside, and kneeling down there. “You, lady! Why should you pray so earnestly that I might live, whose death would profit many, but whose recovery none?”