As He Comes Up the Stair (Gentleman's Magazine serial)/Part 2

by Helen Mathers

 

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

Two Years After.

“Hush!” said Rose, “do not speak to her—she does not even see us,” and stretching out her hand, she softly drew her husband back.

It was Ninon's slender shape that came fluttering by, seemingly blown on its onward path by the vagabond evening wind, so listless, so shadowy, so irresponsive did she appear, a mere pale resemblance to the fresh, gay young beauty that had passed this way in all the flush of her careless youth and love but two short years ago.

At her breast and in her hair she wore a knot of ribbons of the colour that Michael had always loved and praised yet deemed not half so richly dyed as her beautiful faithful eyes, or one half so soft in their silken gloss as the sweet red lips he had so often kissed ... and she wore the ribbons still, though praise and blame were surely for ever over-past from the man who lay sepulchred safely in the treacherous bosom of the smiling, sparkling sea yonder.

Moving to and fro in her daily life she heeded the speech of no man, nor woman either, save one.

A harsh word would have been no more to her than a kind one, a blow have moved her no more than a caress; looks of pity, words of reproof, were alike lost upon her, and naught of either good or evil could touch her in the isolation of her soul.

And so it was that they who had loved her not in bygone days, having held her in but light esteem, were moved even to tears by the dumb anguish of her eyes, and after their simple fashion would do her kindly service, and evince in fifty ways their sympathy for her sorrow; but she heeded them not one whit, nor their looks, nor acts, nor words; the world to her was full of shadows that came and went, went and came, among which she sought in vain the loving, breathing shape of Michael, her lost love.

It came to pass after a while that the Lynaway folk in looking after or speaking of her began to touch the forehead significantly and to say among themselves that the catastrophe had turned her brain, never a very strong one at the best of times.

What else could be supposed of a woman who had never been seen to shed a single tear or heard to utter a syllable concerning her loss to any living creature, who refused to believe that a dead man was in very truth dead, but spent half her days and nights in watching for his return, and who would not wear a vestige of mourning in honour of his memory, but dressed herself always in the colours that he had preferred, so that she might be fair in his eyes at whatever moment he might appear?

And as time went by, and growing weary (as do all people) of bestowing pity where it is not returned in the small change of gratitude and confidence, they came to believe more and more in the fact of her wits being astray, and less and less in the intense reality and depth of her suffering. They could not understand the existence of anything, whether of joy or sorrow, that had no outward form of expression, since their own experiences had never been anything out of the common way; they did not know that great suffering is invariably reticent—nay, that when it shall have reached. its extremest limits it is absolutely silent, and incapable of words or complaint.

He who can express his agony with suitable force and vigour in the form of words most adapted to display its strength retains too much the mastery over his own emotions, is too little abandoned to the fury of them, to be regarded as a truthful and natural exponent of human pain ... the extremity of anguish is dumb since no mere words can fill up the measure of what it endures ... while the inarticulate sounds that may be heard proceeding from a soul in travail, and that form the only true and actual language of woe, contain in their uncouth strangeness a meaning that no actual words, however well chosen and aptly uttered, can boast.

“See,” said Rose, and her voice was still hushed, though Ninon was far out of hearing, “she is going to the old place at the edge of the sea. Hark you, Enoch, it lies upon me sometimes like a chill that some evening or morning we shall find her there—her spirit looking for Michael still, but her body cold and dead!”

She shivered and pressed more closely to the little sleeping babe that lay like a flower on her breast, Enoch's child and hers. The touch of those rosy tender lips had smoothed the greater part of the bitterness out of her heart; the aching void that she had thought no love save Michael's could ever fill was empty no longer, for the child had crept into and filled it, drawing father and mother together as the former never guessed, knowing not how far away from him Rose had been in the days when he had deemed her most truly and entirely his own.

Passionately as Rose had wept for Michael's sudden and violent death, her grief had been tempered (ignobly enough) by the thought that he was now lost for ever to her rival Ninon.

One might have supposed that the poor girl's miserable fate would soften Rose's heart to her, but with that curious dislike that one woman can retain for another long after the man who caused it is dead or forgiven, she could not pardon her for having once possessed Michael's love. Excusing herself to her own heart, she said that Ninon's wrong-doing did but bring its own punishment; that at her door, and hers alone, lay Michael's death; and that no amount of after suffering or shame could atone for her past misconduct. Nevertheless, like most women who are unpitying in their conclusions, she could not bear with equanimity the sight of the working out of the doom, and often with that half-hearted pity, that was at the same time cruel and womanly, she would rise from her bed at night to see if the lone watcher held her accustomed vigil, would often pause by day to speak some kindly words that might have been the harshest upbraiding for aught that Ninon knew or cared.

Enoch's eyes, following his wife's, rested, with fear and trouble in them, upon the girl concerning whom Michael Winter had asked him such a terrible question just two years ago.

“Poor lass!” he said, his breast heaving with as true and pitiful a sigh as ever man gave at sight of a moving spectacle. “To see her as she looks this day, an' to mind what she was when Michael luv'd her! 'Twill ever be in my thoughts that I might ha' bin more quick that night, an' not let him see I had my doubts about her, but at the very moment he spoke so earnestly one or two things come into my mind, an' somehow he seemed to see it an' was gone in a moment...”

His eyes turned back from that lonely figure on the beach below to the wife and child beside him, and the contrast of his own happiness with the fate of Michael, whom he had so dearly loved, smote him with a more than usual sharpness .. the sweet of his own life as set against the bitterness of that other ending often seemed to him as a cruel disloyalty to his lost friend .. such faithful thoughts have true friends one to the other when united in the bonds of an affection that death itself cannot break.

“'Twas not you that did the mischief,” said Rose, her cheek turning pale; “Michael had speech with Martin Strange that night—one of the men swears that he saw them standing on the plot before Michael's cottage together, though nobody knows what passed—nobody ever will know.”

“If Martin spoke agen the girl after she was Michael's wedded wife 'twas a coward's trick, an' a shameful thing to do,” said Enoch, his features kindling with indignation. “If he'd got aught to say agen her he oughter ha' spoke up afore the ring was on her finger; a true man 'ud ha' bitten his tongue out afore he'd spoke after.”

“But supposing,” said Rose, looking downward, “that Martin had not meant to speak, that he had made up his mind (although he loved her so madly) not to stand between her and Michael—would he have been so bad and cowardly then, Enoch?”

“Not if he had kept to 't; but that he didn't do, my dear.”

“I have been thinking,” said Rose, still looking downwards, “that perhaps he was not so bad as we thought—that having found him that night, Michael compelled him to tell the whole truth—and if so Martin wouldn't have been so much to blame.”

“He might have saved the lass's credit I'm thinkin' if he'd had a mind,” said Enoch, “for in spite o' their bein', as folks said, lovers, an' there bein' scandal about the girl, I never will believe that there was real harm in it, or more than a girl's bit folly, for she has an innercent face o' her own, my dear, an' a look in it that I never saw on a sinfu' one yet.”

“Nevertheless,” said Rose, “it must have been something more than folly to drive Michael away from her like that, and to make him say to her, before all the men—that he had no wife!”

“Ay,” said Enoch, “there's no denying that Michael went away full o' the belief that she had wronged him, but I shall allers think he might ha' given the girl a chance o' clearin' herself; an' mark you, Rose, there has been known sich things as a man tellin' a lie to prevent another man from gettin' the girl he loves; an' who's to tell if when Michael asked Martin for the truth, that bein' so tempted, and mad wi' love an' despair, he didn't forget his honour an' his God, an' foul his lips with a black lie?”

“But what made you ever think of such a thing?” cried Rose, thoroughly startled, for such words as these had never before fallen from her husband's lips. “What reason can you have for thinking it, Enoch?”

“Do ye not see for yerself,” he said, “the change that has come over the man? Aye, and that began about the time Michael came home an' began to court Ninon. From bein' a merry outspoken chap, wi' his heart on his sleeve, so that all might see it, he have come by bits to be a downcast, miserable-looking creature, avoidin' everybody, an' seemin' to have sich a bad opinion o' himself as other folks can't choose but have the same o' him theirselves. Now, it takes summut more'n common trouble to bring a man to that state, an' 'tis not in natur' for him as is sound in heart an' conscience to become sich a poor thing—an' for no visible reason neither. If he'd been Ninon's honest lover an' give her up, or fought for her like a man when he found she luv'd Michael, why he'd have had naught to reproach himself wi' when Michael died, an' be free now to try his luck wi' her again; 'stead o' which he jest follows her about like a dog, seemin' not to expect a word or a look, an' that's not the way a man as respec's himself tries to win a good lass's love, my dear.”

“That is true,” said Rose, thoughtfully, “and if it should be that 'twas as you think, then 'tis accounted for that Martin, who stood on the shore when the boat came in without Michael, should have gone on like a madman, saying that 'twas impossible Michael was dead, that it must be all a mistake; and then, when they had convinced him, did he not fling himself on the ground at Ninon's feet imploring her forgiveness, she never heeding him any more than if he had been a stone?”

“If ever,” said Enoch sternly, “she should let herself, through bein' lonely, or in want of somebody to care for, an' set store by her, she should give her promise to Martin, 'tis a worse opinion than I've ever had o' the girl before that I should have that day.”

“Some of the gossips persist in it that she'll marry him sooner or later,” said Rose; “but I don't think so myself. Did you see how, when that old fool Peter said to her the other day, 'Tis no good crying over spilt milk for ever, Ninon, and nobody knows better than yourself that you can take a new husband whenever you please,' how she turned upon him with all the vacant look gone out of her pale face, and such a horror in it as though some creeping ugly thing had come anigh her?”

“'Tis plain that she's got some reason for misliking him,” said Enoch, “though she's too gentle and heart-broken to rail at him or speak her mind, for there never was any strength in the lass save in her great love for Michael. But that she guesses what passed between the men that night I have never had a doubt.”

Martha Nichol came hurrying along with intelligence of some sort written on her plain, hard-featured, yet not unkindly face.

“Hester Winter is dying,” she said, “and I've come to fetch Ninon.”

At that moment the girl turned and began to retrace her steps back to the house.

CHAPTER III.

The Last Friend.

The bushes of white and red roses had blossomed and faded twice since the day of Michael's marriage, and the time of their third flowering was even now as Ninon passed slowly through them to her home.

She heeded not their saucy pride of beauty and fragrance, nor ever plucked one for gladness at the sight or scent of it; they were to her as insignificant portions of the cruel and heartless whole that men and women and all animate and inanimate creation made to her now, that seemed to have forgotten her darling as utterly as though he had never existed. She wondered sometimes in her silent helpless fashion if, after all, she herself were unnatural and strange in thus remembering, when it was apparently in the nature of all things living to forget.

Even his mother wept no longer for her only son now that before her eyes the gates of the Eternal City were opening more widely day by day, since in the looked for rapture of that expected greeting no tears of earthly tribulation might dare intrude. Only upon the joy and gladness of her going fell the shadow of poor desolate Ninon, whom she was leaving friendless and alone, possessed, moreover, by a wild and fallacious hope that could not but be productive of bitter disappointment in the future as well as of feverish unrest in the present.

It was strange in what different fashion these two women, united in the bonds of an intense love for Michael, looked forward to again being restored to him. To one, death was to give back her treasure; to the other, the reaper was as a frightful enemy who had power to rend from her the fulfilment of a desire that filled her to the exclusion of every other idea, thought, or wish; for what if Michael returned to find her dead, and the words lying for ever dumb upon her lips that she but lived to speak? Would not the day of intercession go by for ever, while to the end of all time he would believe that she had deceived him?

That he was not dead she was very sure; he breathed not one air, she another. Her very flesh (she thought) would have crumbled to dust had his gone down to the grave or the deep, and there was justice neither in heaven nor in earth if God permitted her to die before he had returned.

And so she watched for him always—in dead of night, at break of day, in heat of noon and cool of even—and sooner or later, perhaps not for a long, long while—not until her wits had departed and she lay a-dying—she would hear the sound of his foot on the stair, and he would take her in his arms once again, knowing her at last for the innocent faithful Ninon that he had loved so long ago.

Her faith was so intense, her patience so absolute, that these two past years of waiting seemed but a small matter to her, and in no way made her fearful or doubtful of his ultimate return. And so that he might never feel that he was shut out from his own home, the house door stood open night and day, summer and winter, and when the nights were dark from the highest chamber shone a lamp to guide his footsteps should the time of his coming be after the sun had set. His hat and coat still hung in the hall, in the corner where he had been wont to sit of evenings was set his favourite chair, and upon a little table hard by was laid an open book with a sprig of lavender on the page, as though at any moment he might walk in and continue his reading where he had left it off.

At all of which foolish, loving tokens of what she deemed to be a sad and pitiful craze Hester never murmured, trusting in time and the inevitable certainty it must bring to convince the girl of the irreparable nature of her loss.

The way in which it befell that Ninon and Hester Winter dwelt together was in this wise: it had come to the ears of the mother, following quickly on the news of her son's death, how that Mrs. Levesque, cold-hearted yet passionate, and resenting with all the weakness of a cowardly nature the disgrace that Ninon had brought upon herself and home, had in her fury spoken bad and cruel words to the silent and despairing girl, and, bidding her return never again to the threshold to which she had brought but shame and scandal, had thrust her from the door. Whereupon Ninon, scarce heeding her and all unmoved, had returned to the spot from whence Enoch had led her away half an hour ago, and resumed the stony tearless gaze at the water that held (they told her) the body that yesterday was her joyous, loving bridegroom.

Then it was that Hester, all stiff and tired as she was with her sixty-five years of toil and trouble, arose and went to her, and asking no questions, uttering no reproaches, moved to a very passion of pity by that young and terrible face, received the girl into her loving trust and affection, and this I am sure she would not have done had she not found something in her, invisible to all the rest, that satisfied her own spotless mind; for who shall deny that there exists a freemasonry between the pure in heart, as between those that are corrupt and vile? With the one as with the other, speech is not necessary for a perfect understanding. And so, in the house that had been Michael's, but now by the law was Ninon's, they lived together in love and friendship.

It had chanced very soon after Michael's death, that an old man who had been good to Ninon when she lived in Bayonne, died, and bequeathed to her so much money as sufficed amply for the simple wants of the daughter and mother-in-law. Mrs. Levesque, oppressed, for all her coldness, by the undisguised scorn and contempt of the Lynaway folk, had long ago departed to her husband's people, so that Ninon was utterly alone save for one friend, and this, the last and (after Michael) the best, was even now hurrying away from the girl with a willing gladness that with her slow dull heart she sought to understand, yet could not .. already upon Hester's faded brow and lips had come the light that never shines on mortal face unless reflected from the sun of the kingdom of Heaven, already the voices of those around her sounded far away and indistinct, as the finer, spiritual ear opened and the gross and bodily one grew dull .. already love, pity, memory even, were fading out in the full glory of that new and perfect existence that to some happy few begins before the soul has taken actual wing, enabling it to pass from life to immortality without any conscious and painful pause at the intermediate stage of death .. and Ninon, entering from that piteous pilgrimage for which she stole one hour only from Hester's side day by day, turned colder and paler as she saw that many faces closed round the bed upon which her mother lay, heard many voices whispering the one word that will so certainly be spoken of us all, and drawing nearer, saw with only an added oppression at her numb heart that Hester was already beyond the reach of human voice or prayer.

“Mother,” she said, kneeling down beside her, “are you too going from me away, as Michael did—without one word?”

Her voice, scarce higher than a whisper, yet seemed to have power to call back the spirit that hovered on the very threshold of its departure, a human, tender look replaced the unspeakable rapture in Hester's open eyes, a smile played for a moment about her lips, the hand that Ninon held stirred with ever so faint and tremulous a motion.

“Your love..” she said, “your faithfu' love to Michael .. I'll no forget.” ... Then, it being about six of the clock and she so ready and willing to go, the pale king touched her gently on the heart, and she departed.

CHAPTER III.

At the Sign of the “Golden Apple.”

A stream of light poured through the narrow casement of the modest parlour set aside by mine host for such of his customers as could afford to pay for the luxury of smoking their pipes and drinking their grog in more comfort than that which was afforded by the public bar.

On the particular evening of which we write the room contained two occupants only, Stephen Prentice and William Marly.

Each being provided with a full glass and a churchwarden pipe, they presented the solemnly satisfied appearance of men who, having reached the acme of comfort and bodily ease, are yet agreeably conscious that they are in the full possession of their faculties, and quite equal to discussing the affairs of this or any other nation with sagacity, skill, and considerable credit to themselves. A different thing this, and in no way to be confounded with, the objectless garrulity of the man whose tongue waxes lax in proportion as the consciousness of the loss of his self-mastery demoralises him. For, let the unwise assert what they will of the thoughtless readiness with which men will exceed the bounds of moderation, I will aver that none save an habitual drunkard ever crosses the boundary that divides moderation from excess without a passing twinge or thought of self-condemnation, and it is partly the knowledge of the loss of his self-respect that impels him still farther on his brutish way.

The fact that most men have an inveterate tendency to lie in their cups is, in the teeth of that false old proverb “In vino veritas,” a sufficiently established fact. When the key of the tongue is lost, and the portals of the imagination are left unguarded, commonplace Truth appears to the rosy dreams of the revellers as too sober and dull a deity to compel their allegiance, and abandoning themselves to Fancy, they play all manner of frolics under her fickle guidance, although even as a person's disposition and true character will come out more clearly under the influence of wine than any other known test, whether of prosperity, adversity, or mental suffering, the peculiar bent of his false speaking will frequently be a prey to the idiosyncracies of his mind.

Betrayed into this digression by the desire of making patent, to all whom it may concern, that though sufficiently elevated to be more than usually talkative, Stephen Prentice and William Marly might yet be trusted to speak truth if they chose and only falsehood if they deliberately willed it, let us listen to their conversation as it floats audibly enough through the open window, although there is only the sea, as they suppose, to hear it.

“Reckon you wasn't here last night, Bill, when Martin Strange come in?” said Stephen, a big broad-shouldered man, with a good expression of countenance, filling his pipe slowly as he spoke.

“No, but I heerd on't. Queer, an' no mistake.”

Stephen nodded.

“There was a deal o' noise an' talking goin' on,” he said, “when in come Martin, as white as a sheet, his eyes burnin' like coals, an' down he dashes his money; an' says he: 'The best you've got, master, and plenty o't, too, for the prattiest lass in Lynaway's give her word to take me for her husband at last!' Everybody stared at him; some thought he was drunk, but he worn't, he was just mad wi' joy. He looked round at us all as if he was waitin' for us to wish 'im good luck, but nobody sed a word, an' it seemed onnatral and unkind, seein' what a favourite he used to be wi' us all, an' that not so long ago. But old Peter, whose tongue can't help wagging in an' out o' season, called out: 'An' if she do mean to marry you, Martin Strange, I'm thinkin' 'twould have saved a deal o' trouble if she'd made up her mind as well fust as larst.' Upon which Martin bade him hold his tongue for a blockhead, an' swaggered out again. Some believed 'un, some didn't, but all agreed as they hadn't thought it o' Ninon, seein' how faithful she'd allers seemed to Michael.”

Something—it might be but the breath of the evening wind, or the flight of some vagrant animal across the withered September leaves—stirred without in the darkness, unnoticed by either of the men who sat within.

“Old Peter was about right,” said William Marly, speaking slowly and with grave deliberation; “if it is to be, 'tis a pity it wasn't at fust instead of at larst.”

“There I don't agree with ye,” said Stephen, with spirit, “an' I don't mind laying anything reasonable upon it, that Ninon niver marries Martin Strange fust or larst!”

“Then ye think he was tellin' a lie last night?” said William, stolidly. “An', if I might ax the question, what call should he have for to do that?”

“P'raps he deceived himself, or Ninon didn't make the matter plain to 'im; for that she give him her word I niver will believe.”

“Her makin' up her mind to marry him,” said William, overlooking Stephen's last remark, “shows her to be a young woman o' sense; an' that I never have reckoned her till now. When a female gets her name mixed up with a man's in folks' mouths, whether she fancies him or whether she don't, there's only one respectable course open to that female; she ought to marry him. And if not at fust, why then do it at larst, an' with the best grace you can, says I.”

“People had no call to be allers couplin' their names together as they did,” said. Stephen, settling himself more comfortably in his chair to argue the matter out, “seein' how they was kind o' cousins, an' she with no brothers nor sisters, nothin' but that cross ill-natured mother o' hers to speak to. An' as to luvin' Martin, why she niver luv'd nothin' nor nobody till she saw Michael. I mind it as if 'twas yesterday, how when Michael came back, jest as he set foot on shore, he looked up an' saw Ninon standing up like a flower in the sunshine, wi' the light shinin' on the red o' her lips an' the gowld o' her hair, an' how he jest kep' on, lookin'—lookin', seein' none o' us, an' we all knew how 'twould be.”

“She ought to ha' kep' to Martin,” said William, who, whenever he found out a text for himself, always stuck to it like a man. “A lot o' courting as don't lead to nothing, ain't ever no credit to the man nor the maid, an' there was circumstances in this perticler case as made it desirable as they should marry; an' nobody's better aweer o' that fact than you, Stephen Prentice.”

“As to them circumstances, as you calls 'em,” said Stephen “(though in my 'pinion you might ha' found a rayther shorter word; but there, you was always sich a chap for showin' yer bit o' eddication). I ha' been thinkin' lately as how p'raps we was all too ready to think evil o' that matter as we knows on, an' that there mit ha' been another side to't, as 'ud make all the difference. Many a gal a bit foolish afore she's married makes a good wife arterwards.”

“'Twasn't a question o' foolishness,” said William, solemnly, “but o' character. A gal may be foolish up to a certain pint, Stephen, but beyond that pint she can't go without getting blown upon. An' p'raps you won't be after denying that for a young lass to go off wi' a man from twelve o' the clock one day, to five o' the same the next, ain't exac'ly the kind o' conduc' as one could wish to see in one's sister or daughter (if a person happened to ha' got one). An' if there was another side to the tale, 'twas mighty strange as nobody ever heerd on it, neither from Martin, or the gal, or her mother, but people was jest let to think what they pleased—an' it's a failing o' human natur' that when it's axed to believe either good or bad o' a matter, having it left to its own conscience so to speak, it ginerally—I may say, always—believes the bad.”

“Because human natur has got a nasty way o' its own in a good many respecs,” said Stephen, “ain't no reason why we should have it too, an' I shall allers say that I b'lieve Ninon were good, for all that 'pearances was so dead agen her. An' seein' how careful you was to stand by her, William, an' how you dared Peter iver to say a word, an' couldn't ha' done more to save Ninon's credit if she'd ha' bin yer own sister, why it have always surprised me that ye should ha' got sich a bad opinion o' her; she worn't worth all that trouble if she was what you think.”

“Stephen,” said William, with deliberation, “you're a good-hearted chap, but you can't argify—it ain't in your line. When I did what I could for Ninon, 'twas 'cause I reckoned her but young an' heedless, and that if as how there was harm anywhere, 'twas Martin's fault, not hers, he being so much older and more knowledgable. Being over soft-hearted an' a bit foolish about the girl myself, I couldn't abide as she should be the talk o' the place and picked to pieces by the women, so, as you mind, we jest agreed to hold our tongues, and frightened that old fool Peter into holding his, though I'm much mistook if he didn't drop a word here, an' a word there, else how was it that folks began for to look queer at her, an' the women to nod and whisper when she was passing by? 'Sposing as how she was going to be Martin's wife sooner or later, I say, I was minded to shield her; but arterwards, when I saw as she an' Michael meant courting, I took a bad opinion o' her, and had a mind to warn him; but 'tis thankless work coming betwixt a man an' his sweetheart, so I let the matter bide. Then they was married, and we all know the ugly end o' it; for I can't but think it must ha' been something mortal bad to drive him away from her that night, so deep in love with her as he was an' all; but it didn't surprise me, an', if you mind, I said to ye as we was coming home from the feast”——

“Ay!” said Stephen, eagerly; 'an' d'ye know, William, it have bin on my mind iver since that 'twas that same speech o' yours as made all the mischief that night? He must ha' heard or been told summut to go off like that, an' you an' I was the only two as knowed anything to lay real hold on agen the girl. Rose Nichol 'ud ha' told him like a shot if she'd a knowed; she were allers that jealous o' Ninon, an' Enoch, bein' sich frens wi' him, might ha' spoke, thinkin' it his duty, but he didn't know it; an' Peter, he wouldn't ha' dared, bein' sich a coward; so I'm thinkin' it must ha' bin you an' me as did the harm, a pair o' fools as we was!”

William Marly, grown a little pale, and with some of his high manner disappeared, took a good long pull at his glass before making reply.

“What we said didn't go for nothing,” he said at last, “leastways it wouldn't have if it hadn't been true. An' if there was any explanation to be give of that slip o' Ninon's wi' Martin, why couldn't she ha' told Michael the rights of it, an' then, if he did hear stories, he could ha' given 'em the lie? Facks is facks, turn 'em inside out as you may, and I can't but think as Ninon couldn't give a right account o' that business, or she 'ud ha' done it to Michael. Lord! it seems but yesterday I saw her standing at her mother's door, dressed so pretty and smart, an' says she to me: 'I'm going to Marmot this afternoon, William, to see the peep-show an' all the sights with Martin, an' we shall have to step out brisk, an' no mistake, if we want to get home before dark.' Only she didn't say it like that, but in her funny fashion, an' I said to her, liking to stop and talk just for the pleasure o' looking at her: 'I s'pose ye feel very happy, my dear, as you're going along wi' Martin?' She looked up at me without a bit o' a blush or even a smile to show as she understood, an' said: 'I would rather ha' gone wi' Rose and Enoch to-morrow, but Martin was so set upon goin' to-day.' An' as I knew she was always a bit too ready to give up her own way to other people, if by so doing she could please 'em, I sed: 'Ah! you'll get a better will o' your own some day,' thinking of when she'd be married to Martin; for though it's possible to find a sweetheart wi'out a temper o' her own, where will ye find, from one end o' the world to t'other, a wife as hasn't the same? Jest then Martin came along, and they went away together.”

William paused, and again there was that faint sound without, too vague, too much like the moaning of the sea, to attract the attention of those who talked.

“About five o'clock next morning, it being foggy and raw for all that 'twas in the month of March, an' you an' me going down to the boats, we was startled at coming face to face wi' Ninon an' Martin, she in all her bits of finery as I'd seen her in the day before, he in all his Sunday best, an' they both coming along the way as led from Marmot.”

“The same path 'ud ha' brought 'em from the rocks,” said Stephen doggedly, “an' if they'd come by the short cut from Marmot they might well ha' got caught by the tide, an' if so wi' the fog an' all they might ha' been hours there through no fault o' theirs. It wouldn't ha' bin the fust time a Lynaway man has got served that fashion.”

“A tipsy Lynaway man, ye mean,” said William Marly, “not a sober one. An' d'ye think Martin don't know well enough how the tides go? If they come back the beach way that night Martin at least knowed what he was about an' ought to ha' been ashamed to bring her; besides, couldn't he ha' spoken out like a man an' explained it, an' then nobody would have gone for to say a word?”

“Martin didn't come well out o' it,” said Stephen, shaking his head; “he must ha' known reports got about, an' yet he wouldn't say anything one way or t'other. When that old Peter went ferretin' about an' got hold o' a bit o' the matter, Martin ought to ha' spoke out an' cleared the girl somehow, even if he had to tell a big lie or two to do it. Though I niver will believe but that she was good an' honest, an' it comes often to my mind how that mornin' when we came upon 'em she didn't seem any ways ashamed or put out at meetin' us, but called out in her gay innercent way 'Good mornin' to you, Stephen Prentice an' William Marly, an' is it not a bad an' frightful fog?' an' seemed to be goin' to say somethin' more, but Martin, who seemed as mad as mad to ha' met us, pulled her away afore she could say another word; p'raps he thought we should s'pose they'd bin walkin' out erly in the mornin', not knowin' they'd been to Marmot over night. Now, if she'd bin guilty o' wrong-doing an' her conscience had bin sore, she niver could ha' looked at us that way or spoke as she did that mornin'. An' afterwards when I met her agin, there worn't a sign o' trouble in her face, ony after Michael came she looked at us so piteous-like once or twice as if she was sayin' 'Don't tell Michael—don't tell Michael'—but that same trouble allers seemed to me to be Martin's doin', for jest at the first she was as happy as a bird wi'out a thought o' a mistake o' any kind upon her mind; 'twas ony arter she'd promised Michael that she got to look so pale an' bothered.”

“If Martin threatened her,” said William slowly, “having a sartin hold upon her, 'twas a bad, cowardly thing to do, an' not one as Ninon or any other girl with a sperrit 'ud be likely to get over, so I can't b'lieve he ever did, or she wouldn't have made up her mind to take him now. An' mind you, he's always loved her from first to last, so, seeing as how Michael's dead and gone, and anything 'ud be better for the poor lass than the life she's bin living, why let's drink, mate, to the health of Martin Strange and his wife as is to be—Ninon!” Something or somebody without uttered a low exclamation that made the two men turn and glance simultaneously towards the window.

“Who goes there?” cried William Marly, starting up, angry as men usually are when disagreeably surprised, and cursing himself for a fool to have been talking with such freedom by an open window. Leaning far out of the casement and repeating his question still more impatiently, there passed out of the darkness into the light, from the light merged itself imperceptibly into the darkness, the face, pale and angry, and contorted by a bleak look of menace and despair, of Ninon Winter's lost bridegroom, Michael.

CHAPTER IV.

Part of the Truth.

Through the September night the lamp set high in Ninon's chamber shone like a beacon before the eyes of two men who approached the cottage from totally opposite directions.

The footfall of the one, uneven, rapid, and impatient, suggested a person dominated by a strong though irresolute impulse: that of the other, in its steady, almost noiseless on-coming, possessed to the ear of a close observer a relentless purpose by no means likely to be baulked of its fulfilment.

Martin Strange, for to him belonged that eager, hasty step, crossing the narrow grass plot of which mention has been made, came to the open house-door at the very moment when Ninon, bearing a light in her hand, appeared on the landing and began slowly to descend the stairs.

Simultaneously a man entered the garden, and passing without sound over the damp grass, halted by the beech tree that as nearly as possible faced the entrance to the cottage.

Advancing to the door, and not perceiving Martin, who, obeying some inexplicable instinct, had drawn back into the shadow, Ninon lifted the lamp above her head, and gazed intently before her in the direction of the sea.

She wore a white gown of some clinging stuff that followed the curves of her lovely, youthful shape, brightened at breast and elbow with blue, and, the light being fully concentrated upon her, she shone out from the darkness like a living picture framed in ebony. All used as were the watchers to her beauty, it came upon them alike as a pure fresh surprise, as are mostly God's fairest, most delicate gifts that come to us now and again in the stress and turmoil of our passionate, struggling lives.

The girl's tender, innocent lips parted, and the words that she uttered floated out like a caress on the evening air.

“To-night,” she said, “and will he not come to-night? my heart's delight ... my dearest” ... The thought stirring so sweetly at her heart shone through her eyes until they were bright and clear as stars, her pale cheeks glowed to the richness of a damask rose: in one magic moment she compassed again the freshness of her youth, the undimmed splendour of her girlish beauty, and whereas a few moments ago she had in her pallor appeared unsurpassable, there was between now and then the difference of a flower irradiated by vivifying sunshine, and the same when from it is withdrawn colour, and light, and warmth.

Martin Strange, beholding her face, hearkening to her words with a dizzy, unreal sense of amazement and rapture, stepped out of the shade and appeared suddenly before her.

What was the word that broke from her lips like a living thing of joy, and that made him recoil before her as though she had stricken him to the heart, while that other listener yonder creeps a step nearer, asking himself if his brain has turned and his senses have in good sooth left him at last?

“No,” said Martin Strange, “it is not Michael.”

In the poor wretch's voice was the utter negation of despair, and the ignis fatuus of hope, after whose gleam, now bright, now pale, he had danced so long and through such deep and miry paths of dishonour, died out at once and for ever, in the very moment that the cup so passionately longed for, so long and patiently compassed, had at last seemed to be within his very grasp.

“Ninon,” he said, and his voice sounded stale and worthless even in his own ears, “have ye forgotten how yesterday, 'twas but yesterday, you hearkened to my suit an' didn't give me nay when I said as how I should reckon you'd give me your promise to be my wife?”

“No,” said Ninon, pale and wan, “you did ask me, but I did say nor yes nor no, for by this you shall have known, O! yes you shall have known, that not any other reply could I give you ever, and if you did think that because I said not no to you, I did mean yes, you were then altogether deceiving yourself. And if I could not find words for to speak, it was because I was in my heart so sorry that you should to me have been so bad a friend.”

“So bad a friend?” he repeated, faltering, “an' how could I iver be that to you, Ninon, when I've always loved you so despritly.”

“You did mislead me,” she said, and her voice was very calm and quiet. “I am not so young and foolish now as I did use to be, and I do see it all now, and cannot help but for to despise you.”

A bat, whirling with sudden violence against the lamp Ninon held, extinguished the flame, so that the darkness swallowed up the sweet sorrowful beauty of her face and the haggard, shamed misery of his.

“And to me it does not seem ever that you did truly love me,” she went on. “Michael, he did love me, but not you, or you would not to me have brought so great misfortunes. When first I did come to Lynaway you was kind and good to me always, but after we did go to Marmot, ah!” she cried, breaking off suddenly, “that night so fatal and unhappy! you did change to me, and when Michael came and loved me you did make my life a bad thing to me day by day, so that I was in fear always, for you did say to me 'And if you will not love and marry me I will to all people tell the story of Marmot, and to you no one will ever speak again if it shall be known, the least of all Michael Winter, who is your shadow always.' And I did believe you because you were to me so old and wise, and I did know nothing of your English ways and thoughts, although it did seem strange to me why Michael or any one or other person should be angry with me for what was not never any fault of mine; but oh! I did love him so with all my heart that it was to me as death that he should scorn and convey himself away from me, and as you did say to me always 'If to his ears shall reach one word he will go away and you will see his face no more,' my life to me was one fear, from the one day to the other.”

For a moment she paused, then the soft voice went bravely on again.

“On the evening before my wedding that was to be you did follow me to the ruins of the old chapel and say 'Ninon, it is but a fancy you have in your heart for Michael; to me belongs your love since you did love me before he came, and will you not come away with me this night, and I will be good and faithful to you always?' But I did say 'No—it is not so, you was my friend and kind to me, but of love for you I did never have one thought.' And then you was as one who is mad, and cried out that you would to Michael tell all the story, and on my knees I did beseech you to have mercy, and then you did seem ashamed, and bade me to have no fear, for that between Michael and me you would not come, and I did think you kind and good, for I was not then so quick to see the evil and condemn it as now I am become, since in these two years that are past I have been thinking, thinking always, and you do seem to me a thing poor and to be despised when I regard you by the side of my ever-dear husband Michael.

“Perhaps I do wrong you in thinking that you did break your vow to me and speak evil of me to Michael on my wedding night, for it shall be possible that Stephen Prentice and William Marly, who did also know, betrayed me, though to me it is not likely, since they were of hearts so good, that of me they could not have thought evil.”

Did the girl know how pitilessly cruel sounded her words to the man who had been honourable and honest until the one fatal temptation of his life overcame him, turning all things good in him to vileness?

For the harshest judgment that can be delivered by one mortal upon another can in no way approach in severity the unspoken condemnation of self that permeates the soul of a man who has once been virtuous but is now absolutely abandoned to evil. No one but himself can realise the horror of the successive stages through which he passed ere he committed moral suicide, nor can tell how every noble quality, every good impulse, every sterling attribute has, in passing through the alchemy of sin, been transmuted from purest gold to most worthless dross; no one but himself is able to lay side by side the pictures of what he once was and what he now is.

“And so it was ever,” said Ninon sadly, “that while in my mind I did have such thoughts of you, it has seemed to me a bad thing that you should dare to bring to me your words of love, for if Michael had died that night it is his murderer that you would have been. But when to me he shall return I will tell to him the story—all, and he will know that poor Ninon sinned against him never. And though to wait for him is long and weary, yet the end of it will come.

“It was but now that a feeling strange and joyous did overcome me, as though somewhere my darling was at hand, and to myself I did say 'To-night ... he will surely come to me to-night' ... and for his sake I did put from me my dress of black for one such as he once did love ... but you, you do still seem to pass always between him and me.”...

“He will niver come back,” said Martin, gently, “but this thing I can do for ye, sweetheart, that ye shall niver see my face no more ... The luv that have bin my pride an' my joy, my curse an' my ruin, shall go wi' me where I go this night, but it shall be a weariness to you, Ninon, niver again. An' I will not ask ye to forgive me, because if ye knowed all ye would hate me worse than th' lowest thing as crawls upon the earth this night; but if ye could jest promise me that in the futur', when all folks speak ill o' me an' cast stones at my memory, ye would just say to yerself 'He was bad, an' weak an' wicked, an' a coward an' cruel traitor to me, but he luv'd me, he luv'd me always, else he had niver so sinned for me, an' but for one black temptation he might ha' lived an' died honest.' Do ye think ye could promise me that, my dear, an' then jest say in yer own sweet voice 'Good-bye, Martin, an' God bless you'?”

“And for why should I say that?” she said, troubled at his tone, and timidly putting out her hand to touch his, her gentle heart already reproaching her for having been unkind to him.

He drew himself away from her touch as though she had stung him. 'A murderer's hand!” he muttered to himself; then aloud he said gently,

“Would ye mind saying them words, Ninon, just them, no more nor no less?”

A little fearful, yet following the bent of his fancy, and wishful to humour him, she repeated his words after him, “Good-bye, Martin, and God bless you!”

For a moment he stood quite still, as though the echo of her voice still lingered in his ears; then he raised a fold of the dress she wore to his lips, and went away without another word.

CHAPTER V.

The Whole Truth.

Martin Strange, quitting the path above the shingle and striking across the beach, paused to listen to footsteps that seemed to be following close upon his own.

A superstitious fear seized him as they drew nearer, for in them he thought he recognised just such a decisive tread as had been Michael Winter's in his lifetime! Quickly recovering himself, however, and rendered indifferent to either spiritual or human interference by the resolve that animated his breast, he pushed steadily on, coming ere long to the line of rocks that lay between the village of Lynaway and the town of Marmot up yonder. These rocks had one peculiarity that rendered them remarkable. It was this: about half way across them, and two feet above high-water mark, to be reached only by clambering on the detached pieces of rock at its base, was a large circular cave cut out of the face of the gigantic and beetling cliff that in some places literally overhung the sea.

Whether originally used by smugglers, or carved out by the hand of man many hundreds of years ago, no Lynaway or Marmot man could tell; but of one thing they were very certain, that every year it was the means of saving more lives than one from drowning.

For the coast was a treacherous one, with many sharp curves and breaks, so that he who was not well acquainted with it might pursue his walk indifferently enough, believing himself to be in no danger from the advancing tide, until he suddenly discovered that he was hemmed in at all points, and that unless he knew of the cave and could reach it in time, a certain death awaited him. Such misfortunes were, however, rare, as but few strangers ventured on so rough a path, and those who lived hard by were well acquainted with the locality.

Knowing every step of the way, and making neither falter nor stumble, though the night was black as pitch, Martin came at last to the cave of which I have spoken, and, climbing into it, stood still for a moment in an attitude of surprise and doubt, as those other footsteps paused, as his had done, on the rocks below.

In another moment a man had swung himself up, and was standing beside him in the mouth of the cave.

One of those lightning convictions that now and again come to us mortals from we know not whence, came to Martin then as he drew back, giddy with the surprise, yet absolutely without fear; for what was now to him the fury or revenge of Michael or any other man on earth? It was all the same to him whether death came now, or an hour later, only he thought he would rather go out of the world at his own time and in his own fashion .. and he wanted no other sounds to intrude upon the echoes of certain words that would be in his ears at the moment of his departure.

“So you have come back, Michael Winter?” he said, quietly, “an' we all made so sure ye niver would—all of us but one.”

“Dog!” cried Michael, an unspoken prayer rising in his heart that strength might be given him to keep his hands from murder this night. “Do not dare to take her name between your foul lips ... O! Heavens!” he cried, turning aside, “and all the while she was innocent ... innocent ... Had ye a heart in your breast,” he broke forth, and in his voice, strong man as he was, there almost sounded a sob, for the pity of it all had rushed over him in one overwhelming thought, that for a moment replaced the mad longing for revenge with a passion of sorrow and unavoiding regret, “that ye could play such a black part to her and to me? And if I had died that night, I should have died, not knowing ... for ever and ever I should have believed her to be what I might have known she never was, nor ever could be... Thank God!” he cried, his voice ringing out clear and bold (the future being then in his thoughts, not the past) “that the life I cursed, and hated, and would have joyed to part with, has stayed with me to this hour, for though I should die the next, I should take with me the knowledge of my girl's spotless purity ... Hearken! when I fell overboard, with an ugly pistol shot in my side, the men all thought that I sank, but 'twas not so. For all that I was so sick of my life, I would have scorned to take it, so I just struck out for the shore, and in the darkness and confusion found it easy enough to hide (for I was wishful that they should reckon me dead), and though I was stiff and faint with loss of blood, I kept my senses well enough till the early morning, when I spied a ship passing by at no great distance. Making such signals as I could, and the cap'en thinking I was in danger of drowning, he ordered a boat to be put off and they took me on board. The last thing I remember is being taken over the ship's side; when next I came to myself I was in a hospital at Portsmouth. There I stayed for six months, between life and death; recovered somehow, and went to the West Indies. 'Twas on my last voyage that one night, when I was keeping watch on deck, with the stars and sea for company, it came across my mind in a sudden flash that may be you'd told me a lie that night, and I said to myself 'I'll go home, and if they're married; my girl and Martin Strange, I'll not come between them; but if they're still apart, I'll go to her and have the whole truth from her own lips' .... and this night I have had it, but not all—from your lying tongue I will drag the rest!” He broke off suddenly. “Oh, my God!” he cried in a terrible voice, “only a lie—one lie; to give to her and to me two such years as they that are gone! One lie—only one—and he could live—live with the knowledge of what he had done always before him, and dare to offer his love to the wife of the man who was, so far as he knew, murdered by that same lie! And this is the man that I have called friend .... whose word I believed before the whole sweet teaching and the life and ways of my pure and gentle girl, who had power to drive me forth, an outcast, from all I loved and held dear on earth ... Man!” he cried fiercely, “what had I done to you, what had she, that you should deal so vilely with us? Oh, my dear ... my dear,” he groaned, as he leaned against the stones behind him, shaken by love, remorse, joy, and a mad longing for revenge.

“I luv'd her,” said Martin, sullenly, “an' you stole her away from me, an' the loss o' her drove me mad an' made a coward an' a beast o' me—that's all.

“When fust she come to Lynaway (I'll tell ye the whole story o' it, ye'll never have the chance o' hearing it agen), she being my cousin, she got to be home-like wi' me, an' wasn't shy as wi' the other lads, an' when I come to the cottage (for her mother favoured me a bit, an' didn't mislike to see me there) Ninon 'ud talk away to me in her pretty, gentle way, an' it seemed to me that ivery day she growed to like me a bit better, but I said to myself 'I'll wait a while longer; I won't press her for an answer yet, she bein' so young an' gay, with no thoughts of sich things as marriage an' lookin' after a house, an' I niver sed a word till the day as we went to Marmot.”

In the darkness Michael drew nearer, nearer still, and listened intently.

“Niver having bin there before, she was so pleased wi' the sights, an' the gran' shops, that 'twas past six o'clock afore we turned our faces round to go towards Lynaway. But as bad luck 'ud have it, we come past a big show where they was acting wi' puppet-dolls, an' a crowd o' people going in an' out, an' Ninon she stopped an' said 'Oh, Martin, I niver see anything like that in all my life.' An' seeing her face so wistful, I was so foolish as to take her in, though I knowed all the while as 'twas wrong, an' that I bein' so much older than she, an' wiser in the ways o' the world, oughtn't to ha' kep her out so late, or give into her wish.

“I mind to this day how she laffed at the rediklous figures as danced 'about the stage on strings, an' when we was come out she put her little hand in mine, an' sed she 'Qh, Martin, it was all butiful, an' thank you iver so for such a treat.' How it happened I shall niver know, but on looking at the clock I mistook the time, and thought the hour were eight when it really were nine, an' knowing that the tide wouldn't be in till half-past nine, I sed to her 'Will you be afeared to come home the beach way, Ninon, as 'twill save us a good mile an' a half o' the ways an' it's getting very late to be abroad?'”

“She was not at all afeared, an' so we set out, an' the way being so rough, an' the night so dark, I got her to put her hand through my arm, an' all at once, afore I knowed what I was doing, I'd told her how I luv'd her, an' begged her to give me a bit promise that she'd be my wife some day.

“But she said, iver so gently, though I could tell she was frightened, an' for that I blamed myself, that she liked me dearly, and reckend me her good friend, but she had no love to give me or any other man.

“The words was scarcely out o' her lips when a cold sweat broke out over my face, for what should I hear but the sea rushing an' roaring about the base o' Smuggler's Folly, an' I knew as I was out in my reckoning, that the tide was coming in, an' that if we couldn't get to the cave in two minutes our lives wasn't worth the snuff o' a candle.

“I catched Ninon up in my arms an' ran like mad, and crying to her not to be frighted, I went straight into the water that comed up to my waist, an' her gown was all wet an' dripping when we got to t'other side. 'Twas easier work to git to the cave, an I lifted her in, and felt wild wi' myself at having made so foolish a mistake about the tides, an' so brought all this trouble on the poor delicate lass, for I knowed that we should be kep there for hours, and what would all Lynaway be saying about us the while?

“I took off my coat an' wrapped her in it, she being so bitter cold, an' then, thinking that the wall was but hard for her pretty head (she having at last falled off sound asleep), I sat down beside her, so as she could rest her head agen my shoulder, an' so she slep on an' on, an' though I knowed the tide was out again I hadn't got the heart to wake her, an' 'twas such a joy to me to just feel the touch o' her head agen me ... ye needn't grudge it to me, Michael, for 'twas the fust an' the only time, an' she niver knowed it, for I jest moved away when she was waking. She looked about all puzzled, for there was by now a streak o' daylight, an' then I told her we must go our ways home, an' lifted her down from the cave.

“'Twas an unlucky chance as brought Stephen Prentice and William Marly to meet us that morn, but I was hoping as they'd think Ninon an' I'd got up early to do a bit o' courting out walking, so when Ninon wanted to stop an' tell 'em all about it I pulled her along wi' me, an' bade her niver say a word to any one, not even her mother, who had gone away, but was coming back in the arternoon, for though she was so innercent an' ignorant o' harm, I knowed what folks' tongues is, an' I didn't want 'em all clacking together over her an' me.

“But somehow, arter that night, Ninon was niver the same to me as she'd bin afore, an' niver give me a smile or a welcome when I come to the cottage; but knowing the queer ways o' girls, I didn't fret over it, for I guessed she'd bin a bit frightened at fust, an' I still think that she'd ha' grown to love me in time, if so be as ye hadn't come back when ye did.

“Well, ye came, an 'twas all over wi' me then—I worn't so blind as I couldn't see that—but it seemed hard, hard, and I went bitter an' mad over the loss o' her, an' all the good in me was turned to bad, an' the bad to worse agen, so that 'twas no wonder, as I often sed to myself, as how she couldn't larn to luv me. Seeing her slip away from me, an' with my bad an' wicked heart allers full o' her, morning, noon, and night, there come into my head a cruel an' cowardly thought, an' when next I come across her alone I sed 'An' pray have you told Michael Winter that you was my sweetheart before you was his, an' that you stayed away with me from twelve o'clock o' one day to five o' the clock the next?' 'No,' she sed, 'because you did make me promise niver to tell any one, but I wish that you would let me, as I do not desire to have any secret, howsoever small, from him.' They was jest her words, an' she looked at me so innercently that I could see that she didn't understand, but the look o' her sweet face ony made me the madder to think o' what I had lost; so I sed, with a bad kind o' a smile, 'An' are ye pretending not to know, Mistress Ninon, that if I was to go to Michael an' tell him that he'd niver look at or speak to ye again?'

“She got as white as snow, for she had come so to believe all I told her, an' moreover she was so gentle an' humble always, that she niver set up her 'pinion 'gainst other folks, an' God forgive me, but when I saw how she took it, I couldn't but know as how the Devil had put a weapon in my hand, if only I was so base an' dishonourable as to use it agen her.

“I sed to her 'Jest you go and tell Michael all about it, and see if he don't say good-bye to ye, for mind ye he's a very perticler man about wimmin, an' he'd niver look at one as anybody could up an' say a word to him about.' An' then she got all puzzled and at sea, for she couldn't see how she war to blame, an' yet if I told her she war, why then it must be so, for she niver could argue, an' was a child in all her ways and thoughts, wi' not so much knowledge o' the world as a Marmot girl o' ten years old might have.”

“Coward!” burst from Michael's lips; “and knowing her to be thus, you could abuse her trust and so torture her?”

“I have told ye,” said Martin, quite unmoved by this outburst, “that my heart war bad an' black, an' from sich a heart only black deeds could come.

“I niver met her arter that but I give her a look or a side word as made her wince, and once agen I asked her if she'd told you, an' she cried iver so bitterly, and said she luv'd you far too well to run the leastest risk o' your luvin' her one bit the less!

“Time went on, an' the night afore your wedding day and hers came round, an' 'twas that same evening I followed her to the old chapel ruins, and catching her there alone, prayed o' her that she should give you up and come away with me, I being mad wi' drink an' folly, an' the wicked thoughts give to me by the very Devil himself. I sed 'And if you will not come, Ninon, I will tell Michael bad things o' you, an' he will believe them, for he will say, “An' why did you not tell me of it all yerself, if there was no wrong in it, Ninon?”' I seem to see her now as she went down on her knees to me, prayin' me that I would not come atween her an' you. Something touched me then, and shamed me through an' through, an' I promised her, meaning to keep my word.”

“For God's sake,” cried Michael, “get to the end of this infernal story, if you can, before I have your blood upon my hands.” (“Oh! my dear ... my dear ...!” he moaned to himself.)

“There's but little more to tell,” said Martin, in the even, unconcerned voice of one who relates what he has seen, not what he has done. “Ye married her, and I bore the sight; ye took her home, an' I bore to see that also; but something drove me to go into your garden, to give one look at the house as held ye two together, not knowing that ye was abroad learning things through the blabbing tongues of two tipsy fools—things as should send ye to me wi' a question on your lips as could be answered in just one little word, yes or no.

“My body an' soul cried out agen her being yours; the loss o' her was pressing on me then wi' a bitterness I had niver knowed before, an' the awful temptation as beset me then none can iver tell ... An' I told ye the damnedest, blackest lie that iver came'out °hell, not once, but twice over.

“O' what ye sed to me, or what I did arter that, I have niver knowed to this day, but the 'next thing I mind was standing on the shore beside Ninon, watching the boat come back in which old Peter said ye had gone away. The words was trembling on my lips that I should say to ye when ye touched the shore, an' that should make ye reckon me the vilest wretch alive, yet send ye straight to thé arms o' your wife, when the boat came in without ye, an' I knew that I was as guilty o' yer death as though I had killed ye with my own hand that night.”

“And believing in my death,” cried Michael, scarcely able to articulate through the intensity of the emotions that swayed him, “you could insult her with the offer of your love, the foulest, most sinful passion ever inspired by aught so sweet and innocent?”

“Ay,” said Martin, “I could do even that. I'd ha' gone on luvin' an' sinning for her for ever and ever if I'd thought there was iver a chance o' winning her luv; but she told me to-night as she despised me, an' when a gentle creature like her says that, there's no more to be said or done.

“An' now why don't ye go to her? She sed ye'd come to-night, an you've come; but ye needn't hurry, there's lots o' time before ye, years, an' after a bit ye'll both forget all about this bit time that's gone.

“Have ye any more questions to ask me? If not, ye were well away, for I'm growin' tired and sleepy. I shall sleep soundly an' well to-night.

“Are ye there still? If ye're waiting till I say I'm sorry for all I've done, ye'll wait for iver, an' don't forget that I luv'd her, luv'd her always.”

*******

At the same moment that a man, slain by his own hand, murmurs in dying “She said 'Good-bye, Martin, and God bless you!'” Ninon hears the sound of Michael's footstep “As he comes up the stair.”

THE END.