I needed, as you
may well imagine, authority to back me in such efforts, but, unhappily
for him, I possessed its aid. He now resents, and very naturally, the
restraint which my companionship once imposed upon him, and sets down to
my account the estrangement which he so bitterly rues. An old man's
friendship is of no great worth at any time; but weighed in the balance
against a woman's love--"
"Sir!" interrupted Agnes, with indignation.
"Pardon me," continued Richard, gently; "I see you do not love him. I am
deeply grieved, for the sake of this poor lad, who is as devoted to you
as ever, to find it so, and to feel that it was in part my fault. I will
ask him to forgive me if he can."
"Nay, Mr. Balfour, I beseech you, don't do that," cried Agnes, with
crimson cheeks.
"As you please," murmured he, gravely. "But, remember, a few days hence,
or perhaps a few hours, and I may be beyond his forgiveness. It will
then rest with you, young lady, to clear my memory. You are not angry
with me--you can not be vexed with a dying man."
"No, no." She was sobbing violently; her heart was touched, not only by
his own condition, as she would have had him believe, but by these
confidences respecting Charley. There is nothing more dear to a young
girl than the testimony of another man to her lover's fealty; the
witness himself is even guerdoned with some payment of the rich store he
bears; and from that moment Balfour was not only forgiven by Agnes, but
even beloved by her.
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