_Dor._ (_who has been sobbing through this speech_). Oh, sir, forgive me if I seem to speak thoughtlessly, for I am but a poor untaught girl, and I know not how to reply. He has been so good to me, and I love him with all the love of my heart. Oh, sir, it cannot be that after these long years of tender love I am to be taken from him now. Oh, it will kill him! Have pity on him, sir, for it will kill him! I cannot leave him now. I am the very light of his eyes--the very heart of his life (_sobbing_)--I cannot leave him now! Oh, sir, if thou hast no care for him, yet for the love of my mother have pity upon me! _Jas._ (_after a pause_). I had thought my atonement was at an end, but my bitterest punishment is yet to come, and I am to suffer it at thy hands. So be it--it is just! Dorothy, my child, whom I have sought so long, I will not break another heart. Thou art free to go to him who has been more to thee than many fathers. _Dor._ Heaven bless thee for those good words; they have sown seed in my heart that will bear thee truer love than could have come in many years passed away from him! Sir, thou hast spared his life. When his wife left him it drove him to the very verge of madness, and this last blow would have ended his life! _Jas._ Did his wife leave him? _Dor._ Alas! yes, many years since--before I was sent to him. _Jas._ And he loved her very dearly too? _Dor._ So dearly that he would have taken her to his heart if she had returned to him--so dearly that he called me Dorothy because he read her name in mine eyes. _Jas._ Dorothy! was that her name? _Dor._ Ay, Dorothy Marple, for that is rightly my father’s name. But to save her good fame he gave out that he was dead, and he took the name he now bears. _Jas._ (_aside_). My sin has borne bitter fruit! Oh, Dan’l Druce, give me thy pardon! Dorothy, for the sake of the Dorothy who is dead, give me thy pardon! _Enter DAN’L DRUCE._ Master Druce, Heaven has interposed to save me from unwittingly working on thee a deep and bitter injury. Take the child that is thine own in the eye of God and of man. As she has been thy daughter hitherto, so shall she be thy daughter to the end! _Dan._ (_amazed_). Why, sir--Dorothy, my child--is he not goin’ to take thee from me? _Jas._ I have no right with her. She is thine, to bless thine old age, and to bring thee comfort to the very last. _Dan._ Dorothy--my child--my child! (_Takes DOROTHY in his arms._) Oh, sir, I know not how to bless thee for this blessing!