If you felt unkindly toward me--"
"Unkindly?" A world of love thrilled in that word. "Luttra, I am your
husband and rejoice that I am so; it is to lay the devotion of my
heart and life at your feet that I seek your presence this hour. The
year has taught me--ah, what has not the year taught me of the worth
of her I so recklessly threw from me on my wedding day. Luttra,"--he
held out his hand--"will you crown all your other acts of devotion
with a pardon that will restore me to my manhood and that place in
your esteem which I covet above every other earthly good?"
Her face which had been raised to his with that earnest look we knew
so well, softened with an ineffable smile, but still she did not lay
her hand in his.
"And you say this to me in the very hour of my father's and brother's
arrest! With the remembrance in your mind of their bound and abject
forms lying before you guarded by police; knowing too, that they
deserve their ignominy and the long imprisonment that awaits them?"
"No, I say it on the day of the discovery and the restoration of that
wife for whom I have long searched, and to whom when found I have no
word to give but welcome, welcome, welcome."
With the same deep smile she bowed her head, "Now let come what will,
I can never again be unhappy," were the words I caught, uttered in
the lowest of undertones.
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