"Sell it rather," said Salmon, in deepest sympathy, "and with the proceeds begin life anew."
"Our lives have run their course. We can no longer hold up beneath the world's black frown," said Horatio.
"That is the talk of the moral coward," said Salmon, boldly. "Come, I know your story. Draw out your strength, your manhood. Fate brought me here in time. You both shall live to look upon this hour with shame."
"He is right," said Ouida, arousing herself with mighty effort. "Look up, my love, we may yet wring from fortune's grasp a noble fate. Where is the purchaser?"
"He awaits without. Would see the work, pay the price and go."
"Let him come," said Ouida.
Salmon retired for a moment, and when he returned, brought with him—Paul Strogoff, the sinned against!
He only said: "I come not in anger, nor in vengeance; only in sorrow, to crave your pardon, that I live."
"Would that I had died ere this," said Ouida.
Horatio bowed his head in shame and humiliation.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BEGINNING OF REDEMPTION.
Paul Strogoff's sorrow had ennobled him, and, though the opportunity came to him to humiliate those who had wronged him, no man, born of woman, could have acted
