'If you had erred,' she said, 'it might have been easier for me, for then I might have found some comfort in thinking you unworthy. But no, I would not, for all the world, have had it so! I'd rather have borne the hardness of our parting than that!'
'Was it--was it so very hard--to you?' whispered Herries.
'Is it hard when the nest and the young ones are torn from the bird, do you think?' said Alison. 'If that is hard, my suffering was like it; for all that I had went from me when I went from you!' Herries sighed, and memory tormented him. He heard the plashing rain upon the pavement--the rain of that night of parting; he saw the white face that Alison turned upon him from the window of the sedan as the chairmen carried her away into the darkness.
'May God pardon me the hardness of my heart,' he said, raising the hat from his head, 'for I'll never forgive myself as long as I live.'
They spoke of Robert Burns, and they spoke of Nancy, unravelling that terrible entanglement of the past. Herries spoke with a new gentleness, and Alison, as she heard him, pressed close to his side.
'You forgive them--you do forgive them--don't you, Archie?' she whispered. 'For, you know, Nancy never dreamed how deeply she injured us, and he--the man--knew not what he did. We cannot be happy if we leave them unforgiven!' Herries did not answer, for his heart was big within him, and in his ears was the sound of a voice, now stilled for ever, pleading for that forgiveness which the sweet woman at his side now urged upon him.
'"_Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors!_"' said he, at last, in the same words, and they fell from him with a sigh.
'I must go now,' said Alison, at last, 'for I dare not linger. I have stayed too long.'
'Nay, but I'll not let you, Alison,' said Herries, 'till it is promised me that our parting is at an end, and that I can come and ask you of your parents this very day. Why not?' Alison stood still and looked at him, and in her eyes was a something akin to that compassion with which you will see a mother look at her careless and unconscious child.
'Nay, Archie,' she said faintly. 'I had been thinking that you knew.... But that's all gone and done with now. I have no freedom to go with any man. I cannot leave my home.'