young ones are hurt,' and went away singing. When I got home, his laugh
and his song haunted me. I thought I saw him still in my room, prompting
me to write, and I sat down and wrote. Oh, pardon, pardon me! I have
been a foolish poor creature, but never meant to do such harm. The Evil
One tempted me! There he is, near me now! I see him yonder! there, at
the doorway. He comes to claim me! As you hope for mercy yourself, free
me from him! Forgive me!"

I made an effort over myself. In naming Margrave as her tempter, the
woman had suggested an excuse, echoed from that innermost cell of my mind,
which I recoiled from gazing into, for there I should behold his image.
Inexpiable though the injury she had wrought against me and mine, still
the woman was human--fellow-creature-like myself;--but he?

I took the pale hand that still pressed my arm, and said, with firm
voice,--

"Be comforted. In the name of Lilian, my wife, I forgive you for her and
for me as freely and as fully as we are enjoined by Him, against whose
precepts the best of us daily sin, to forgive--we children of wrath--to
forgive one another!"

"Heaven bless you!--oh, bless you!" she murmured, sinking back upon her
pillow.

"Ah!" thought I, "what if the pardon I grant for a wrong far deeper than I
inflicted on him whose imprecation smote me in this chamber, should indeed
be received as atonement, and this blessing on the lips of the dying annul
the dark curse that the dead has left on my path through the Valley of the
Shadow!"