He still held both my hands, and looked at me in such a way that I thought he was thinking he had a bold piece of work to demand of me to effect his release,--a part of his plan,--and that I would undertake it without hesitating, no matter what the risk, as I would have done. “It is as much as a man ought to expect during his life to realize a friendship as pure and unselfish as yours has always been for me, and I want to say while I am looking in your eyes--please do not say it is nothing, for it is a great deal--that you have been the one solace of a very unhappy man. I may not have deserved it, but it has been given to me, and I love you as a bad man ought to love a good wife who has been faithful to him through all his misdeeds. I am very wicked, and have a wicked heart, but you can have it to say that you had all the love there was in one man’s life. All the tenderness in my rough nature has been given to you, and no one else has ever found welcome in my heart. No one, not even my father or mother, divided my affection for you. It is not much, but it is all I have.” I assured him it was a great deal, and that it had been a comfort to me from the day I began to remember. “You are the only one who was ever thoughtful or kind to me, though I have always coveted such attention,” he added. “I suppose I deserved all the neglect I have received--I hope not, but I cannot think anything else--and you brought the only ray of genuine sunshine that ever found its way into my desolate heart; without you I should have been friendless all my life. I hope I could have made myself worthy of friends had they come in my way, but they never came, and I have had no other object in life than to deserve your good opinion. I am afraid I can never repay you, but I am very thankful.” He was very earnest, but not sad, and I believed he was telling me this because when I came back there would be active work to do, and a long separation, and when I turned again to call the keeper to release me, Jo said for me to remember that it was all for the best. “All for the best, I am certain,” I replied. “And do I look cheerful again, as though I felt that what I say is true?” “I have not seen a pleasant smile on your face before in a long while,” I said, “and I feel greatly encouraged. I hope my recollection of you will always be as you appear now.” There was a mingled look of bravery and tenderness in his face which made me very fond of him. “I am sure the plan is a good one, for it has made us both happier already.” “I am glad to hear you say that,” he said, putting his hand through the little wicket to bid me good-by, when I was finally in the corridor, “and so it will turn out. But even if it did not meet your approval at first, you would not upbraid me, or think less of me than you do now?”