What is your remorse worth now?" she asked. "It comes too late."

Then he looked her steadily in the face, and replied:

"Greta, it is well said that the most miserable man in all the world is
he who feels remorse before he does the wrong. I was--I am--that man. I
did what I did knowing well that I should repent it--ay, to the last
hour of my life. But I was driven to it--I had no power to resist
it--it mastered me then--it would master me now."

The finger-tips of Greta's right hand were pressed close against her
cheek. Hugh Ritson took a step nearer.

"Greta," he said, and his voice fell to a broken whisper, "there are
some men to whom love is a passing breath, a gentle gale that beats on
the face and sports in the hair, and then is gone. To me it is a wound,
a deep, corrosive, inward wound that yearns and burns."

Greta shuddered; it was as if his words stung her. Then with an
impatient gesture she turned again toward the door, saying:

"This is the death-hour of your child, and, Heaven pardon you, it seems
to be the death-hour of your brother's hopes too!" She faced about. "Do
you think of him?" she added, lifting her voice. "When you see this man
in his place, wasting his substance and mine, do you ever think of him
where he is?"

Her voice trembled and broke. There was a moment's silence. She had
turned her head aside, and he heard the low sound of sobs.

"Yes, I think of him," he answered, slowly. "At night, in the sleepless
hours, I do think of him where he is; and I think of him as a happy man.
Yes, a happy man! What if he wears a convict's dress?--his soul is yoked
to no deadening burden. As for me--well, look at me!"

He smiled grimly.

"I have heard everything," said Greta; "you have sown the wind, and you
are reaping the whirlwind."

Something like a laugh broke from him. It came from the waters of
bitterness that lay deep in his heart.

"Not that," he said. "All that will pass away."

She was on the threshold; a force of which she knew nothing held her
there.

"Greta, I am not so bad a man as perhaps I seem; I am a riddle that you
may not read. The time is near when I shall trouble the world no more,
and it will be but a poor wounded name I shall leave behind me, will it
not? Greta, would it be a mockery to ask you to forgive me?"

"There are others who have more to forgive," said Greta. "One of them
is waiting for you at this moment; and, poor girl! her heart is broken."

Hugh Ritson be