They were Hetty's eyes looking
at him with that mournful gaze, as if she had come back to him from the
dead to tell him of her misery.
She was clinging close to Dinah; her cheek was against Dinah's. It
seemed as if her last faint strength and hope lay in that contact, and
the pitying love that shone out from Dinah's face looked like a visible
pledge of the Invisible Mercy.
When the sad eyes met--when Hetty and Adam looked at each other--she
felt the change in him too, and it seemed to strike her with fresh
fear. It was the first time she had seen any being whose face seemed to
reflect the change in herself: Adam was a new image of the dreadful past
and the dreadful present. She trembled more as she looked at him.
"Speak to him, Hetty," Dinah said; "tell him what is in your heart."
Hetty obeyed her, like a little child.
"Adam...I'm very sorry...I behaved very wrong to you...will you forgive
me...before I die?"
Adam answered with a half-sob, "Yes, I forgive thee Hetty. I forgave
thee long ago."
It had seemed to Adam as if his brain would burst with the anguish of
meeting Hetty's eyes in the first moments, but the sound of her voice
uttering these penitent words touched a chord which had been less
strained.
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