At length her face settled
into a look of determination. She laid the letter on the table, and rose
with a steady troubled light in her eyes. What she was thinking of he
could not tell, but he made at once the proposal.
"Hester," he said, "I cannot leave your mother; you must go for me to
your uncle and do the best you can. If it were not for your mother I
would have the rascal prosecuted; but it would break her heart."
Hester wasted no words of reply: She had often heard him say there ought
to be no interference with public justice for private ends.
"Yes, papa," she answered. "I shall be ready in a moment. If I ride
Hotspur I shall catch the evening train."
"There is time to take the brougham."
"Am I to say anything to Corney, papa?" she asked, her voice trembling
over the name.
"You have nothing to do with him," he answered sternly. "Where is the
good of keeping a villain from being as much of a villain as he has got
it in him to be? I will sign you a blank cheque, which your uncle can
fill up with the amount he has stolen. Come for it as soon as you are
ready."
Hester thought as she went whether, if it had not been for the
possibility of repentance, the world would ever have been made at all.
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