“And what was your excuse? Six years of silence. What were they to me? Six centuries might have waned, and I should have kept my faith. When I looked at this trysting string, I said alway and ever the same: ‘She is as strong as the threads she tore with so great an effort; she will never waver.’ “What was the good of nature’s brand that you bear: the mark of unyielding purpose, of faith and love as firm as God’s foundation, as broad as the firmament--you belie them all. There you stand now with your great eyes shining as if a _soul_ dwelt behind them; your rich smooth skin blooming with the color and purity of nature, not artifice; your red lips curved with a smile you cannot repress, and yet I swear you are as false as hell! “Only this”--he touched the crimson stains--“only this defeated my plan, and enabled you to breath the sweet spring air once more; only this has made it possible for me to die cursing you with my latest breath without dealing that blow at your heart that should have mingled our blood in one stream.” The exhausted man fell back upon his pillows, and Dorcas crept to his side and smoothed the rich waves of jet-black hair, and with a wet sponge moistened his lips. Presently he opened his eyes, and before he could speak she said calmly: “I am going to take thee to our home. George Townsend will help me to nurse thee back to life and peace. I will tell thee, now, that I never knew thy full intent in asking me for the cap string; had I known it I should not have given it, for thy reason and my own would have rebelled against an alliance wholly at variance with Nature’s laws. Thee did not love _me_, the girl; thee loved my _faith_, my trust in thy honesty; and I bid thee go on loving it, for I shall trust thee now, just as I trusted thee then. I believed thee innocent of the crime for which thee had been confined. I believed it only because thee said it was so, and thy face told the same story. I believe in thee now, in despite thy _words_, for thy soul is speaking more truly through thy glance, and that tells me that thy devotion to thy _grandpère_ was no myth, while thy frenzy is. Thee shall find thy faith in me is rewarded, for thee shall live to be one of our household and to bless us all with thy goodness.” She ceased speaking, summoned the jailer’s wife, and had the sick man borne to her carriage. When she had reached her own door Dorcas entered alone, and quietly spoke to her husband, who still sat by the breakfast table. “George, I have brought home a very ill man; will thee please attend to his removal from the carriage while I prepare a bed? I shall put him into the little room next our own that I may the more carefully tend him.” That night, as Dorcas sat late by the invalid’s side, the only word that he spoke was the whispered question: “Are you not afraid?” And as she bent over him tenderly she answered: “Not for a moment do I fear thee; I only wish thee well.”