He was conscious. Pale and cold and nigh gone as he was, there
came a light to his eyes and a smile to his lips when I knelt beside
him. "You did not go?" he breathed.
"No," I answered, "I did not go."
For a few minutes he lay with closed eyes; when he again opened
them upon my face, there were in their depths a question and an
appeal. I bent over him, and asked him what he would have.
"You know," he whispered. "If you can . . . I would not go without
it."
"Is it that?" I asked. "I forgave you long ago."
"I meant to kill you. I was mad because you struck me before the
lady, and because I had betrayed my trust. An you had not caught
my hand, I should be your murderer." He spoke with long intervals
between the words, and the death dew was on his forehead.
"Remember it not, Diccon," I entreated. "I too was to blame. And I
see not that night for other nights, - for other nights and days,
Diccon."
He smiled, but there was still in his face a shadowy eagerness.
"You said you would never strike me again," he went on, "and that
I was man of yours no more forever - and you gave me my
freedom in the paper which I tore." He spoke in gasps, with his
eyes upon mine. "I'll be gone in a few minutes now. If I might go
as your man still, and could tell the Lord Jesus Christ that my
master on earth forgave, and took back, it would be a hand in the
dark.
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