And if it was really the property of an
honest woodman and his wife, and the highroad ran very close to the
border of a sheltered wood, where their cottage was--wouldn't they feel
very badly when they found their rose was gone?"
"You plead very well," said Austin almost roughly, "and you're pleading
for every one _but me_--for Edith and father and mother, who've all done
wrong--and now you want to take the burden of their wrongdoing on your
own innocent shoulders, and make me help you--no matter how _I_ suffer!
_I've_ tried to do _right_--never so hard in all my life--and mostly--I
've succeeded. You've helped--I never could have done it without you--but
a lot of it has been pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. Now I've
reached the end of my rope--and I suppose, instead of thinking of that
--the next thing you do will be to make excuses for Jack Weston."
"Yes," said Sylvia, very gently, "that's just what I'm going to do. I
know how hard you've tried--I know how well you've succeeded.
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