tone for years of reckless dissoluteness? 'Tis a
doctrine of cravens, who, having lacked in life the strength to live as
conscience bade them, lack in death the courage to stand by that life's
deeds. I am no such traitor to myself. If my life has been vile my
temptations have been sore, and the rest is in God's hands. But in my
course I have sinned against many men; many a tall fellow's life have
I wantonly wrecked; some, indeed, I have even taken in wantonness or
anger. They are not by, nor, were they, could I now make amends. But you
at least are here, and what little reparation may lie in asking pardon
I can make. When I first saw you at Perth it was my wish to make you my
friend--a feeling I have not had these twenty years towards any man.
I failed. How else could it have been? The dove may not nest with the
carrion bird."

"Say no more, sir," cried Kenneth, genuinely moved, and still more
amazed by this curious humility in one whom he had never known other
than arrogant and mocking. "I beseech you, say no more. For what
trifling wrongs you may have done me I forgive you as freely as I would
be forgiven. Is it not written that it shall be so?" And he held out his
hand.

"A little more I must say, Kenneth," answered the other, leaving the
outstretched hand unheeded. "The feeling that was born in me towards you
at Perth Castle is on me again. I seek not to account for it. Perchance
it springs from my recognition of the difference betwixt us; perchance I
see in you a reflection of what once I was myself--honourable and true.
But let that be. The sun is setting over yonder, and you and I will
behold it no more. That to me is a small thing. I am weary. Hope is
dead; and when that is dead what does it signify that the body die also?
Yet in these last hours that we shall spend together I would at least
have your esteem. I would have you forget my past harshness and the
wrongs that I may have done you down to that miserable affair of your
sweetheart's letter, yesterday. I would have you realize that if I am
vile, I am but such as a vile world hath made me. And tomorrow when we
go forth together, I would have you see in me at least a man in whose
company you are not ashamed to die."

Again the lad shuddered.

"Shall I tell you my story, Kenneth? I have a strong desire to go
over this poor life of mine again in memory, and by giving my thoughts
utterance it may be that they will take more vivid shape. For the rest
my tal