One by one the birds hushed their twitter and went to rest, and only the soft cooing of the pigeons floated down now and then from the lofty belfry.

On the eastern horizon a thin, fleecy scarf of clouds was silvered by the rising moon, the west was a huge shrine of beryl whereon burned ruby flakes of vapor, watched by a solitary vestal star; and the sapphire arch overhead was beautiful and mellow as any that ever vaulted above the sculptured marbles of Pisan Campo Santo.

Mr. Murray rose and stood with his head uncovered and his eyes fixed on the nobbing nasturtiums that glowed like blood-spots.

“Mr. Hammond, your magnanimity unmans me; and if your words be true, I feel in your presence like a leper and should lay my lips in the dust, crying, ‘Unclean! unclean!’ For all that I have inflicted on you, I have neither apology nor defence to offer; and I could much better have borne curses from you than words of sympathy and affection.  You amaze me, for I hate and scorn myself so thoroughly, that I marvel at the interest you still indulge for me; I can not understand how you can endure the sight of my features, the sound of my voice.  Oh! if I could atone!  If I could give Annie back to your arms, there is no suffering, no torture that I would not gladly embrace!  No penance of body or soul from which I would shrink!”

“My dear boy, (for such you still seem to me, notwithstanding the lapse of time,) let my little darling rest with her God.  She went down early to her long home, and though I missed her sweet laugh, and her soft, tender hands about my face, and have felt a chill silence in my house, where music once was, she has been spared much suffering and many trials; and I would not recall her if I could, for after a few more days I shall gather her back to my bosom in that eternal land where the blighting dew of death never falls; where

‘Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.’

Atone?  Ah, St. Elmo! you can atone.  Save your soul, redeem your life, and I shall die blessing your name.  Look at me in my loneliness and infirmity.  I am childless; you took my idols from me, long, long ago; you left my heart desolate; and now I have a right to turn to you, to stretch out my feeble, empty arms, and say, Come, be my child, fill my son’s place, let me lean upon you in my old age, as I once fondly dreamed I should lean on my own Murray!  St. Elmo, will you come?  Will you give me your heart, my son! my son!”

He put out his trembling hands, and a yearning tenderness shone in his eyes as he raised them to the tall, stern man before him.

Mr. Murray bent eagerly forward, and looked wonderingly at him.

“Do you, can you mean it?  It appears so impossible, and I have been so long sceptical of all nobility in my race.  Will you indeed shelter Murray’s murderer in your generous, loving heart?”

“I call my God to witness, that it has been my dearest hope for dreary years that I might win your heart back before I die.”