“ ’Tan’t that I forgive her. ’Tan’t that so much. ’Tis more as I beg of her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon her. Odd times, I think that if I hadn’t had her promise fur to marry me, sir, she was that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she’d have told me what was struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me, and I might have saved her.”

I pressed his hand. “Is that all?”

“Theer’s yet a something else,” he returned, “if I can say it, Mas’r Davy.”

We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. He was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He was merely collecting himself to speak very plainly.