The answer
came at length very slowly.
"I could have forgiven him," Durant said, "if he had stuck to her and
made her happy."
"Ah! There came the rub. But did Rotherby ever stick to anything? It was
a jolly good thing he died--for all concerned. Yet, you know, he cared
for her to the last. Blackguard as he was, he carried her in his heart
right up to his death. I tell you I was with him, and I know."
There was strong insistence in the man's words. Durant could feel the
racing pulse leap and quiver under his hand. He leaned forward a little,
looking closely into the drawn face.
"I think you have talked enough," he said. "Try to get some rest."
"I haven't raved," said Ford, with confidence. "It has done me good to
talk. I can't help thinking of Leo Rotherby. My brain runs on him. He
wanted to see you--horribly--before he died. I believe he'd have asked
your forgiveness. But you wouldn't have given it to him, I suppose? You
will never forgive him in your heart?"
Again the answer did not come at once. Durant was frowning a little--the
frown of a man who tries to fathom his own secret impulses.
"I think," he said at last, "that if I had seen him and he had asked for
it, I should not have refused my forgiveness."
"No one ever refused Rotherby anything," said the dying man, with a
curious, half-humorous twist of his mouth under its dark moustache.
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