, caught up the
handkerchief, handed it to him and stepped back.

"Thank you, sir," Pennington said, bowing, and then, after a short
pause, he added: "I don't know what to say in explanation of--of myself.
But I should think, sir, that the strength of a man's love is a
sufficient defense of any weakness he may possess--I mean a sufficient
defense of any indiscretion that his love has led him to commit. This
situation stole upon me, and I was scarcely aware of its coming until it
was here. I didn't know how serious--" He coughed his words, and when he
became calmer, repeated his plea that love ought to excuse any weakness
in man. "Your daughter is an angel of mercy," he said. "When I found
myself dying as young as I was and as hopeful as I had been my soul
filled up with a bitter resentment against nature and God, but she drew
out the bitterness and instilled a sweetness and a prayer. And now to
take her from me would be to snatch away the prospect of that peaceful
life that lies beyond the grave. Sir, I heard you tell her that she was
crazy. If so, then may God bless all such insanity."

He pressed the handkerchief to his mouth, racking, struggling; and when
the convulsive agony had passed he smiled, and there in the shadow by
the door the light that crossed his face was ghastly, like a dim smear
of phosphorus. And now the Major's shoulders were not stiffened with
resentment; they were drooping with a pity that he could not conceal,
but his face was hard set, the expression of the mercy of one man for
another, but also the determination to protect a daughter and the good
name of an honored household.

"Mr. Pennington, I was never so sorry for any human being as I am for
you at this moment, but, sir, the real blessings of this life come
through justice and not through impulsive mercy. In thoughtless sympathy
a great wrong may lie, and out of a marriage with disease may arise a
generation of misery. We are largely responsible for the ailments of
those who are to follow us. The wise man looks to the future; the weak
man hugs the present. You say that my daughter is an angel of mercy. She
has ever been a sort of sister of charity. I confess that I have never
been able wholly to understand her. At times she has even puzzled her
mother, and a daughter is odd, indeed, when a mother cannot comprehend
her. I am striving to be gentle with you, but I must tell you that you
cannot marry her. I don't want to tell you to go, and ye