CHAPTER 5: A Quiet Time.
As the sergeant was telling the story, the squire had sat with his face shaded by his hand, but more than one tear had dropped heavily on the table.
"I wish I could say as much," he said sadly, when the other ended.

"I wish that I could say that my conscience is clear, Mr.Wilks.I have misjudged you cruelly, and that without a tithe of the reason, which you had, for thinking me utterly heartless and cruel.

You will have heard that I never got those letters my son wrote me, after he was ill, and that, when I returned home and received them, I posted to Southampton, only to find that I was too late; and that, for a year, I did all in my power to find the child.

Still, all this is no excuse.

I refused to forgive him, returned his letters unanswered, and left him, as it seemed, to his fate.
"It is no excuse to say that I had made up my mind to forgive him, when he was, as I thought, sufficiently punished.