She could not help believing him.

"I promise," she said. "But you are cruel to compel a mother to
forgive the villain that stabbed her daughter to the heart."

"If the poor lad were not dying, I should see that he gave himself
up, as indeed he set out to do some weeks ago, but was frustrated by
his friends. He is dying for love of her. I believe I say so with
truth. Pity and love and remorse and horror of his deed have brought
him to the state you saw him in. To be honest with you, he might
have got better enough to be tortured for a while in a madhouse, for
no jury would have brought him in anything but insane at the time,
with the evidence that would have been adduced; but in his anxiety
to see me one day--for his friends at that time did not favour my
visits, because I encouraged him to surrender--he got out of the
house alone to come to me, but fainted in the churchyard, and lay on
the damp earth for the better part of an hour, I fancy, before we
found him. Still, had it not been for the state of his mind, he
might have got over that too.--As you hope to be forgiven, you must
forgive him."

He held out his hand to her. She was a little softened, and gave him
hers.

"Allow me one word more," said the curate, "and then we shall go:
Our crimes are friends that will hunt us either to the bosom of God,
or the pit of hell."

She looked down, but her look was still sullen and proud.