for deep regret, and deep contrition, Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in my power.’

I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him.

‘I should cancel with it,’ he pursued, ‘such patience and devotion, such fidelity, such a child’s love, as I must not forget, no! even to forget myself.’

‘I understand you, sir,’ I softly said. ‘I hold it — I have always held it — in veneration.’

‘But no one knows, not even you,’ he returned, ‘how much she has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven.

Dear