'
'What words are these!' cried Mr Haredale, regarding her with wonder.
'Among what associates have you fallen? Into what guilt have you ever
been betrayed?'
'I am guilty, and yet innocent; wrong, yet right; good in intention,
though constrained to shield and aid the bad. Ask me no more questions,
sir; but believe that I am rather to be pitied than condemned. I must
leave my house to-morrow, for while I stay there, it is haunted. My
future dwelling, if I am to live in peace, must be a secret. If my poor
boy should ever stray this way, do not tempt him to disclose it or have
him watched when he returns; for if we are hunted, we must fly again.
And now this load is off my mind, I beseech you--and you, dear Miss
Haredale, too--to trust me if you can, and think of me kindly as you
have been used to do. If I die and cannot tell my secret even then (for
that may come to pass), it will sit the lighter on my breast in that
hour for this day's work; and on that day, and every day until it comes,
I will pray for and thank you both, and trouble you no more.
With that, she would have left them, but they detained her, and with
many soothing words and kind entreaties, besought her to consider what
she did, and above all to repose more freely upon them, and say what
weighed so sorely on her mind.
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