‘Silence, sir!’ thundered Frederick, ‘remember you are speaking of _my wife_! Mercy!’ he continued, after a pause, ‘what mercy did you have on me, when you cut my dream of love so cruelly short, and in so devilish a manner? What mercy had you on her, my sweet, innocent, loving Jenny, when your accursed hand hurled her over those awful rocks? My love! my darling!’ he continued, pacing the floor of his room in his agitation, ‘why was I not by your side at that fatal moment, that I might have made this fiend pay the penalty of his crime by sharing your fate? My wife--my wife--and he asks me to show mercy upon him!’ ‘Mr Walcheren! I will do anything--anything--if you will only keep my secret now. It can do you no good to publish it, nor _her_ either. Let me go free and I will pay any penalty you like. I am a rich man. If your Church demands it, I will pay half my fortune into her coffers, or, if you wish it, I will sign a paper, promising to leave England at once--to-morrow, if you insist upon it--and never show my face in the country again; I will perform any penance you may put upon me, only don’t make the matter public property after this length of time.’ He had forgotten, in his cowardly fear, that Walcheren had no witness against him, that his crime had been committed in secret, and that an English jury had acquitted him, and all men, from blame. His conscience had turned him into such a sorry poltroon that his memory had departed with his manliness. He grovelled before his opponent on the ground--he even attempted to kiss his feet, but Frederick Walcheren spurned him from him with his boot. ‘Don’t touch me, you brute!’ he exclaimed, using involuntarily the very words poor Jenny had blurted forth in her indignation, ‘your very lips are contamination! Once for all, I will _not_ spare you. If you escape to the uttermost ends of the earth, I will pursue you there! You shall walk no longer among your fellow-men like a whited sepulchre. If I unfrock myself in order to obtain it, I will have my revenge!’ ‘I have tried to make amends,’ groaned Henry Hindes, who was still upon his knees. ‘I have not used the money Mr Crampton left to my son. It is all there; I intend to endow a church or an hospital with it. But it was _hers_. It more justly belongs to you; you shall have it, every farthing, with double interest, if you will only consider your intention again and contemplate how little good you will do yourself and others by carrying it out.’