Page 643 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

to be broken, her memory recalled the past days of trust
and happiness, and her woman’s fancy once more invested
the selfish villain she had reclaimed with those attributes
which had enchained her wilful and wayward affections.
The unselfish devotion which had marked her conduct to
the swindler and convict was, indeed, her one redeeming
virtue; and perhaps she felt dimly—poor woman—that it
were better for her to cling to that, if she lost all the world
beside. Her wish for vengeance melted under the influ-
ence of these thoughts. The bitterness of despised love, the
shame and anger of desertion, ingratitude, and betrayal, all
vanished. The tears of a sweet forgiveness trembled in her
eyes, the unreasoning love of her sex—faithful to nought
but love, and faithful to love in death—shook in her voice.
She took his coward hand and kissed it, pardoning all his
baseness with the sole reproach, ‘Oh, John, John, you might
have trusted me after all?’
John Rex had conquered, and he smiled as he embraced
her. ‘I wish I had,’ said he; ‘it would have saved me many re-
grets; but never mind. Sit down; now we will have supper.’
‘Your preference has one drawback, Sarah,’ he said, when
the meal was concluded, and the two sat down to consider
their immediate course of action, ‘it doubles the chance of
detection.’
‘How so?’
‘People have accepted me without inquiry, but I am afraid
not without dislike. Mr. Francis Wade, my uncle, never
liked me; and I fear I have not played my cards well with
Lady Devine. When they find I have a mysterious wife their

For the Term of His Natural Life