He withdrew his chair with a movement which she mistook for one of loathing.

“He hates me for their sake,” thought she, “although he knows me to be innocent.  How much more must he hate those who made me seem so guilty!” But, in truth, his withdrawal from her touch had a very different explanation.  He would have kissed her, and held out both his hands, but for the blood which he dreaded might be even now upon them.  He saw that she loved him still, and had ever done so, even when she seemed his foe:  all the old affection that he thought had been dead within him awoke to life, and yet he dared not give it voice.

“You have said my husband was alive and well, Richard?”

“I said I had left him so,” answered he, hoarsely.

“Then you have spared him thus far; spare him still, even for my sake; and, for Heaven’s sake, spare my son!  Harden not your heart against one more dear to me by far than life itself.  He has done you no wrong.”

Richard shook his head; he yearned to clasp her to his breast; he could have cried, “I forgive them all,” but he could not trust himself to speak, lest he should say, “I love you.”

“You have seen my boy, Richard, many times.  The friendship you have simulated for him must have made you know how warm-hearted and kind and unsuspicious his nature is.  You have listened to his merry laugh, and felt the sunshine of his gayety.  Oh! can you have the heart to harm him?”

Still he did not speak; he scarcely heard her words.  The murdered man was standing between her and him; and he would always stand there, seen by him, though not by her.  From the grave itself he had come forth to triumph over him to the end.

“Richard”—­her voice had sunk to a tremulous whisper—­“I must save my son, and save you from yourself, no matter what it costs me.  You little know on the brink of what a crime you stand.”

He laughed a bitter laugh; for was he not already steeped in crime?  She thought him pitiless and malignant when he was only hopeless and self-condemned.

“Do you remember Gethin, Richard, and all that happened there?  Can you not guess why I was made to marry—­within—­what was it?—­a month, a week, a day—­it seemed but the next hour—­after I lost you?  You have had twenty years of misery for my sake; but so have I for yours.  Did my husband love me, think you?  Did he love my child?  He had good cause, if he had only known, to hate us both.  Can you not guess it?”

He looked at her with eager hope—­a trembling joy pervaded him.  But hope and joy had been strangers to him so long that he could scarce recognize them for what they were.

“My Charley is yours also, Richard—­your own son.”

Richard burst into tears.  There was somebody still to love him in the world—­his own flesh and blood—­somebody to live for!  The thought intoxicated him with delight; a vision of happiness floated before him for an instant; then was swallowed up in darkness, as a single star by the gloom of night.  His own flesh and blood; ay, perhaps inheriting the same nature as his father.  It was only too likely, from what he had seen of the lad; and he had himself done his best to develop the evil in him, and to crush the good.