I wish I could describe in words the compassion I felt for this
miserable and misguided girl. But I am almost as poorly provided with
words as with money. Permit me to say--my heart bled for her.
Returning to my aunt's chair, I observed dear Mr. Godfrey searching for
something softly, here and there, in different parts of the room. Before
I could offer to assist him he had found what he wanted. He came back to
my aunt and me, with his declaration of innocence in one hand, and with
a box of matches in the other.
"Dear aunt, a little conspiracy!" he said. "Dear Miss Clack, a pious
fraud which even your high moral rectitude will excuse! Will you leave
Rachel to suppose that I accept the generous self-sacrifice which has
signed this paper? And will you kindly bear witness that I destroy it
in your presence, before I leave the house?" He kindled a match, and,
lighting the paper, laid it to burn in a plate on the table. "Any
trifling inconvenience that I may suffer is as nothing," he remarked,
"compared with the importance of preserving that pure name from the
contaminating contact of the world. There! We have reduced it to a
little harmless heap of ashes; and our dear impulsive Rachel will never
know what we have done! How do you feel? My precious friends, how do you
feel? For my poor part, I am as light-hearted as a boy!"
He beamed on us with his beautiful smile; he held out a hand to my aunt,
and a hand to me.
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