I own myself mistaken.
I think, sometimes, I must have been mad, I cannot tell you precisely
what took me to prison. Will you believe me that it was for a woman's
sake?"
"I knew it!" she interrupted.
"It was to screen a woman's folly," he continued. "And, indeed, wrong as
I was, I believed myself to be doing a most chivalrous deed."
"It is a great pity, Basil," said Lady Carruthers.
"Yes," he said, quietly; "but I was a woman's dupe, and I have suffered
enough. It was one false step, but I shall spend my life in trying to
redeem it."
He kept his word. In four years' time the name of Basil Carruthers rang
through the land with a pleasant sound; he had, indeed, found something
to do.
He was returned for the borough of Rutsford, and his fame as an able an
eloquent orator spread over the country.
Then he studied to become a model landlord; he built large, airy
cottages and schools; he paid the attention that every landlord ought to
pay that the land be well drained, well cultivated. He was a friend to
all his tenants, a benefactor to his dependants. In the course of time
people forgot to whisper there had been some story about Mr. Carruthers;
they only mentioned him in terms of praise. The very quality that his
mother once thought would be against him now proved to be in his favor.
If he was more romantic, more enthusiastic than other young men, he
employed the superabundance of his gifts to excellent purpose.
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