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Rh He was the same, there was no mistaking him now—but changed.

The anathemas he had heard had eaten into his soul. He could never, he felt, be the same man again. Instinctively the audience apprehended the fact. The men on their part were self-convicted, self-condemned. The mere presence, without one word of extenuation, of those we have misjudged often tacitly acquits the wronged, and condemns the hasty accuser. Some sought to explain and excuse. Not unkindly, but firmly, the doctor waived them off. He explained in a few words his almost miraculous preservation.

"Now," he said, "I have come to establish you, to finish the work, and to depart for ever. You will have the land; that is all you want," he added, with some bitterness. "When my death seemed to come between it and you, you cursed me, as you thought, in my grave. I ought never to have expected more. I told you at the outset that lack of confidence between man and man, selfishness of purpose, readiness to believe the first lie concerning those who would befriend you, is your failing—the failing of the race. That is not your fault personally. The conditions in which you have been reared are responsible for it. See, at least, that your children, whose lot, please God, shall be a happier one, believe in man, stand close together, and learn to be true till death. I forgive you. You knew not what you did. But my heart can never forget."

At this juncture a voice sounded from the body of the hall—"It's all bunkum; I happen to know that he never made no Will but the one what old Elms had. He never left the place to us as he promised. Where's the Will he blows about? Let him produce it if he can."

The doctor recognized the voice.