I will confess it all. Maisie, your constancy and your firmness
have conquered me. And your devotion to your father. If only I had had
a daughter like you, my girl, one whom I could have loved and trusted,
I might have been a better man. I might even have done better work for
science--though on that side, at least, I have little with which to
reproach myself."
Hilda bent over him. "Hubert and I are here," she said, slowly, in
a strangely calm voice; "but that is not enough. I want a public, an
attested, confession. It must be given before witnesses, and signed and
sworn to. Somebody might throw doubt upon my word and Hubert's."
Sebastian shrank back. "Given before witnesses, and signed and sworn to!
Maisie, is this humiliation necessary; do you exact it?"
Hilda was inexorable. "You know yourself how you are situated. You have
only a day or two to live," she said, in an impressive voice. "You must
do it at once, or never. You have postponed it all your life. Now, at
this last moment, you must make up for it. Will you die with an act of
injustice unconfessed on your conscience?"
He paused and struggled. "I could--if it were not for you," he answered.
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