If you
can, believe me."
The Chemist entreated Milly, by a gesture, to come nearer to him;
and, as he listened looked in her face, as if to find in it the
clue to what he heard.
"I am too decayed a wretch to make professions; I recollect my own
career too well, to array any such before you. But from the day on
which I made my first step downward, in dealing falsely by you, I
have gone down with a certain, steady, doomed progression. That, I
say."
Redlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned his face towards the
speaker, and there was sorrow in it. Something like mournful
recognition too.
"I might have been another man, my life might have been another
life, if I had avoided that first fatal step. I don't know that it
would have been. I claim nothing for the possibility. Your sister
is at rest, and better than she could have been with me, if I had
continued even what you thought me: even what I once supposed
myself to be."
Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he would have put
that subject on one side.
"I speak," the other went on, "like a man taken from the grave. I
should have made my own grave, last night, had it not been for this
blessed hand."
"Oh dear, he likes me too!" sobbed Milly, under her breath.
"That's another!"
"I could not have put myself in your way, last night, even for
bread. But, to-day, my recollection of what has been is so
strongly stirred, and is presented to me, I don't know how, so
vividly, that I have dared to come at her suggestion, and to take
your bounty, and to thank you for it, and to beg you, Redlaw, in
your dying hour, to be as merciful to me in your thoughts, as you
are in your deeds."
He turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on his way forth.
"I hope my son may interest you, for his mother's sake. I hope he
may deserve to do so. Unless my life should be preserved a long
time, and I should know that I have not misused your aid, I shall
never look upon him more."
Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first time.
Redlaw, whose steadfast gaze was fixed upon him, dreamily held out
his hand. He returned and touched it--little more--with both his
own; and bending down his head, went slowly out.
In the few moments that elapsed, while Milly silently took him to
the gate, the Chemist dropped into his chair, and covered his face
with his hands. Seeing him thus, when she came back, accompanied
by her husband and his father (who were both greatly concerned for
him), she avoided disturbing him, or permitting him to be
disturbed; and kneeled down near the chair to put some warm
clothing on the boy.
"That's exactly where it is. That's what I always say, father!"
exclaimed her admiring husband. "There's a motherly feeling in
Mrs. William's breast that must and will have went!"
"Ay, ay," said the old man; "you're right. My son William's
right!"
"It happens all for the best, Milly dear, no doubt," said Mr.
William, tenderly, "that we have no children of our own; and yet I
sometimes wish you had one to love and cherish. Our little dead
child that you built such hopes upon, and that never breathed the
breath of life--it has made you quiet-like, Milly."
"I am very happy in the recollection of it, William dear," she
answered.
