"Mr. Magistrate," spoke Duff Salter, a little confused. "I sent him drafts at his request. He knew me to be the resident executor, and wrote to me. I did it because of the pity I had for Agnes, and my faith in her assurance that he was innocent."
"Good! Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "I would have done the same myself."
"I returned with my man," concluded Andrew Zane. "I was now so confident that I did not fear; but a hard obstinacy, coming on me at times, I know not how, impelled me to postpone my vindication and make a test of everybody. I was full of suspicion and bitterness--the reaction from so much undeserved anxiety. I was the ghost of Kensington, and the spy upon my guardian, but the unknown sentry upon my wife's honor all the while.
"Magistrate!"--the young man turned to the alderman, and his face flushed--"is there no punishment at law for men, and women too, who have cruelly persecuted my wife with anonymous letters, intended to wound her brave spirit to the quick?"
"Plenty of it," said the magistrate. "Yes, I will. I will warrant them all."
"I will not forget it," said Andrew Zane darkly.
"My husband, forget everything!" exclaimed Agnes. "Except that we are happy. God has forgiven us our only deceit, which has been the temptation of many in dear old Kensington."
The old magistrate arose. "Case dismissed," he said: "Dinner is ready in the next room for Mr. and Mrs. Zane, and Judge Salter. I fine you all a dinner. Yes, yes! I will!"
Andrew Zane was leaning on his elbow, in bed, listening to the tolling bell for the old pastor of Kensington. He had not attended the funeral, fearing to trust his eyes and heart near Calvin Van de Lear, for the unruly element in his blood was not wholly stilled. Good and evil, gratitude and recollection, contended within him, and Agnes just escaped from the long shadow of his father's rage--had forebodings of some violence when the two young men should meet in the little thoroughfare of Kensington--the one with the accumulated indignities he had suffered liable to be aroused by the other's shallow superciliousness. Agnes had but one friend to carry her fears to--Him "who never forsaketh." She had not persisted that her husband should attend the old pastor's funeral, whither Duff Salter escorted her, and going there, relieved from all imputation, her evidently wedded state was seen with general respect. People spoke to her as of old, congratulated her even at the grave, and sought to repair their own misapprehensions, suspicions, and severities, which Agnes accepted without duplicity.