CHAPTER XX.
"And mighty souls with gen'rous pity melt." Gay.
Notwithstanding the generosity of their natures, the deep regret and manly avowal of Sir Henry Hodson, accompanied with the restitution of their property;—notwithstanding also the distressing circumstances, so analogous to their own, that had led to the robbery;—the De Brookes might still have coincided in some measure with the sentiment which had elicited from the offender so full, impartial, and elaborate a sentence of self-condemnation. But there was one feature in the mingled portraiture of vice and virtue now lying before him that, relieved and heightened by a contrast of incidents which his own fortunes presented, had the effect of magnifying the merits and of diminishing the demerits of the case to the mind of De Brooke, in a degree favourable to the Baronet far beyond the most romantic of his hopes; and, indeed, if truth alone were to decide, far beyond what the Christian duty of forgiveness would either exact or justify.
