"'Well, Harry,' I said, returning upon his former speech, 'I can't suppose you really intend to forgive nothing.' "'It is a hypocritical world,' he answered. 'If it were anything else, every one would confess what every one knows, that no one ever forgave any one anything since man was created.' "'Am I, then, to assume that you will prosecute this matter, to their ruin, through revenge?' I asked, rather harshly. "'Certainly not,' said he. 'That feud is dead and rotten. It is twenty years and more since I saw them. I'm tired of their names. The man I sometimes remember--I'd like to see him flung over the crags of Darness Heugh--but the girl I never think of--she's clean forgot. To me they are total strangers. I'm a trustee in this matter; why should I swerve from my duty, and incur, perhaps, a danger for those whom I know not?' "'You are not obliged to do this--you know you are not,' I urged. 'You have the power, that's all, and you choose to exercise it.' "'Amen, so be it; and now we've said enough,' he replied. "'No,' I answered, warmly, for it was impossible to be diplomatic with a man like this. 'I must say a word more. I ask you only to treat them as you describe them, that is as strangers. You would not put yourself out of your way to crush a stranger. There was a time when you were kind.' "'And foolish,' said he. "'Kind,' I repeated; 'you were a kind man.' "'The volume of life is full of knowledge,' he answered, 'and I have turned over some pages since then.' "'A higher knowledge leads us to charity,' I pleaded. "'The highest to justice,' he said, with a scoff. 'I'm no theologian, but I know that fellow deserves the very worst. He refused to meet me, when a crack or two of a pistol might have blown away our feud, since so you call it--feud with such a mafflin!' Every now and then, when he is excited, out pops one of these strange words. They came very often in this conversation, but I don't remember them. 'The mafflin! the coward!' "I give you his words; his truculent looks I can't give you. It is plain he has not forgiven him, and never will. Your husband, we all know, did perfectly right in declining that wild challenge. All his friends so advised him. I was very near saying a foolish thing about you, but I saw it in time, and turned my sentence differently; and when I had done, he said: "'I am going now--the shower is over.' He took my hand, and said 'Good-bye.' But he held it still, and looking me in the face with his gloomy eyes, he added: 'See, I like you well; but if you will talk of those people, or so much as mention their names again, we meet as friends no more.'