fter to-morrow--Saturday at the
latest--and it may be a good many years before I get back again, and so
I didn't want to go, Kate, without telling you that--that--I forgive you
for everything you have done to me--and whether you forgive me or not,
I have kept my promises to you, and I will always keep them as long as I
live."

"What does dear Uncle George think of it?" She too was addressing the
end of the stick; gaining time to make up her mind what to do and say.
The old wound, of course, could not be opened, but she might save him
and herself from fresh ones.

"He doesn't know I am going; nobody knows but you. I have been a curse
to every one who has been kind to me, and I am going now where there
will be nobody but strangers about me. To leave Uncle George breaks my
heart, but so does it break my heart to leave my precious mother and
dear old Alec, who cries all the time and has now taken to his bed, I
hear."

She waited, but her name was not added to the list, nor did he raise his
head.

"I deserve it all, I suspect," he went on, "or it wouldn't be sent
to me; but it's over now. If I ever come back it will be when I am
satisfied with myself; if I never come back, why then my former hard
luck has followed me--that's all. And now may I talk to you, Kate, as
I used to do sometimes?" He straightened up, threw down his cane, and
turned his shoulders so he could look her squarely in the eyes. "If I
say anything that offends you you can get up and walk away and I won't
follow you, nor will I add another word. You may never see me again, and
if it is not what I ought to say, you can forget it all when I am gone.
Kate!"--he paused, and for a moment it was all he could do to control
himself. "What I want to tell you first is this--that I haven't had a
happy day or hour since that night on the stairs in my father's house.
Whether I was right or wrong I don't know; what followed is what I
couldn't help, but that part I don't regret, and if any one should
behave to you as Willits did I would do it over again. What I do regret
is the pain it has caused you. And now here comes this awful sorrow to
Uncle George, and I am the cause of that too."

She turned her face quickly, the color leaving her cheeks as if alarmed.
Had he been behaving badly again? But he swept it away with his next
sentence.

"You see, my father refused to pay any of the bills I owed and
Uncle George paid them for me--and I can't have that go on a day