This speech was uttered with grave deliberation, and the manner of it was most impressive; the speaker might have stood for some personification of Justice, weighing his words with equal hand. Indeed this man was more than just, he was magnanimous. The antiquary could not withhold his admiration from his companion, though with his sentiments he was wholly unable to sympathise. ‘You are throwing good feeling away, Frank Dennis,’ he said, ‘upon a thankless cur. If you think to move me to compassion for him, you are pleading to deaf ears. He is henceforth as a dead man to me and mine.’ ‘You will act as you think right, no doubt,’ said the young man quietly, ‘and I am only doing the same.’ He felt that whatever his own wrongs had been, the wrongs of his companion were far greater. Cajoled, deceived, and stricken in years, his reputation smirched, if not destroyed; humiliated in his own eyes, degraded in those of others; if he did not do well to be angry, it could hardly be said, being human, that he did ill. Dennis gave the antiquary the address of his cottage, and the necessary information for reaching the spot, and bade him adieu with much emotion. ‘But you will not desert us?’ said Mr. Erin imploringly. ‘If you stand apart from us——’ His voice trembled and he left the sentence unfinished. He not only, as the other guessed, meant to imply that in such a case they would be friendless indeed, but that Dennis’s withdrawal from his society would be construed as condemnation. ‘If you write to me to come,’ he answered, ‘if you are quite sure that my presence will be acceptable to you and yours——’ and in his turn he hesitated. ‘I understand,’ said the antiquary gently. ‘I shall think of others for the future, as well as of myself, if only’ (here he gave a mournful smile) ‘to distract my thoughts from what is painful.’ ‘There is sunshine still behind the clouds,’ said Dennis, as he shook hands. ‘True, true,’ replied the other; then added to himself with a deep sigh as he closed the door after his visitor, ‘for _you_, but not for me.’ CHAPTER XXXV. FAREWELL. NOT a single night did Margaret sleep away from her uncle’s roof. He went in person to Mr. Wallis’s house and claimed her. The apology he had schooled himself to make to that gentleman was stayed upon the threshold of his lips. ‘Your face, Mr. Erin, tells me all that I need and more than I wish to hear,’ said the kindly lawyer. ‘Pray spare yourself and me.’ One unfortunate remark, however, Mr. Wallis made, for which he bitterly blamed himself, though as it turned out, unnecessarily. The antiquary paid him over that portion of money received from the Theatre which was due to William Henry, and requested him to place it in his hands. ‘I will do so,’ said the lawyer, ‘though, were I in his place, I had rather starve than take it.’