George Manville Fenn (continued 8)

“What? What is that you said?”

“That there is no such thing as true and honest love upon the face of this wretched earth,” he cried. “It is a puzzle and a muddle. For a wretched error I am thrown overhand—”

“Speak what you said before,” she said, wildly; “tell me what you said.”

“I said that Rhoda Penwynn is about to marry John Tregenna, or John Tregenna is about to marry Rhoda Penwynn, which you like,” he said, almost brutally.

“Is—this true?” she said, hoarsely.

“Yes,” he cried, with the veins standing out in his forehead, as, in spite of the calm, cynical way in which he had schooled himself to bear all this, the passion burning at his heart would have vent. “Honesty, integrity, and virtue are to have their reward; long-suffering patience is to win the day; so I say to you again, Madge, you and I had better wed.”

“Go—go and leave me,” said Madge, hoarsely. “Mr Trethick—I want to be alone.”

Her looks brought Geoffrey back to his senses, and the ebullition of the passion was over.

“No: you are ill. Sit down there. Here, let me get you water—spirit—something, Madge. My poor girl, I have given you terrible pain by my mad words.”

“Mad words? Mr Trethick,” she cried, “were not those words true?”

He did not answer.

“They were true. I know they were; and yet she dared to come here and trample upon me in the midst of my wrongs.”

“Who? Who came here?” cried Geoffrey.

“Rhoda Penwynn, and accused me cruelly. She to dare to speak to me as she did,” cried Madge, whose face seemed quite transformed. “Half fainting as I was, I saw her take the child into her arms, and kiss and fondle it because it was his; and now she would step into my place. But, sooner than she shall be John Tregenna’s wife, I’ll stand between them at the altar, and—oh, God help me! what am I saying?—and I swore to him that I would die sooner than confess his shame.”

She threw herself sobbing upon the floor.

“What have I said—what have I said?” she moaned.

“Only the simple truth that I was sure I knew,” said Geoffrey, looking at her sadly. “Only words that it might have been kinder if you had spoken before.”

“But I could not—I dared not. He made me swear. He said it would be his ruin, Mr Trethick, and he promised that even if it was a year past, if I would be silent and help him, as soon as he had arranged his money matters I should be his wife; and I never said a word until now,” sobbed the wretched girl.

“And it was your ruin and mine instead, Madge,” said Geoffrey, coldly. “But there, my girl, I don’t accuse you. I felt sure it was so, and I have only waited for the truth to come.”

“And you will never forgive me,” she cried, piteously.

“Oh, yes, if my forgiveness will do you good, Madge, you have it freely. But there, I must go. I shall stifle if I stay here longer;” and, without another word, he went out and down amongst the rocks, seeming to take delight in trying to exhaust himself by hurrying over the most rugged parts to calm himself by physical exertion.

Over and over again he vowed that he would go and expose John Tregenna, but he always ended by vowing that he hated Rhoda Penwynn now, and that he would not stir a step even to meet her half-way.

It was past mid-day when he slowly climbed up once more to the cottage, and encountered Bessie at the door nursing the child.

“Well, Bessie,” he said, “you look startled. What’s the news?”

“Miss Mullion, Mr Trethick!”

“Well, what of her? Not worse?”

“No, Mr Trethick; she has put on her things and gone out I think she has gone up into the town.”

“Madge Mullion? Gone up to the town!”

“Yes, sir, unless—unless—oh pray—pray, sir, go and see.”

Chapter Fifty Two.

John Tregenna’s Visitor.

Mr Chynoweth was seated at his desk, with the heavy flap resting upon his head. The cards were dealt out in four packs, turned up so as to be beneath his eye, and it seemed as if some very particular hand was being played out; but Mr Chynoweth’s thoughts were wandering, and for quite half-an-hour he did not move a card.

“Curse him!” he said; and then there was another long pause, during which Mr Chynoweth’s thoughts still went on wandering.

“Hah!” he ejaculated at last; “he seems to hold all the trumps, and beats us at every game. I don’t know that I like the governor, but he has always been just to me, and paid me like a man, and trusted me. Yes, he has always trusted me, and I’m growing old in his service, and I can’t bear to see things going to the dogs. Yes, he holds all the trumps somehow, and he’ll win the rubber.”

There was another pause, during which Mr Chynoweth impatiently packed the cards, put them away, and shut down the heavy flap of his desk before taking up his slate, and sadly rubbing it with the piece of sponge attached by a string.

“Win the rubber, that’s what he’ll do. He’s got the governor into a regular hole, and under his thumb, and it seems that he’ll marry Miss Rhoda after all. Curse the mines! I wish he’d never touched them. An old fool! Hadn’t he had experience enough of what comes to those who dabble in mines? It’s wonderful! I shall be throwing my own poor savings down next like poor Rumsey, and—talk of the—Morning, Rumsey.”

“Ah, Chynoweth!” said Dr Rumsey, entering the office with his fishing-rod in his hand, and his creel hanging from his shoulder. “Nice morning.”

“Beautiful. How many trout?”

“Not a brace,” said the doctor, drawing the basket round, and peering in at the hole disconsolately. “One miserable little fellow, that’s all. Chynoweth, I’m regularly out of luck.”

“Ah, yes,” said Chynoweth; “you always do seem to hold bad hands.”

“Wretched,” said the doctor, with a grim smile; “and the money comes in horribly.”

“Always does when you want it.”

“Always,” asserted the doctor, and there was another pause.

“By the way, Chynoweth,” he said at last, as the clerk went on polishing his slate, “I hear that Wheal Carnac was sold in London the other day.”

“Yes.”

“Who bought it?”

“Don’t know. We haven’t heard. Deposit’s paid, and all that sort of thing. That’s all we know at present.”

“Do you—do you think that I could get fifty pounds lent me on those shares now?” said the doctor, hesitatingly.

Chynoweth shook his head.

“But I paid down five hundred for them—my wife’s money.”

“My dear Rumsey,” said Chynoweth, “you couldn’t raise fifty shillings upon them.”

The doctor raised the lid of his basket now, and gazed in at the unfortunate trout.

“It’s very hard,” he said, as if addressing the fish. “My expenses are so large.”

“Ten times mine,” said Chynoweth, “I dessay.”

“Do you—do you think Mr Penwynn would make me an advance, Chynoweth? I’ll deposit the shares with him.”

“Spades and aces, no!” cried Chynoweth. “The very name of Wheal Carnac would send him into a passion. I’ll ask him to make you an advance, Rumsey—that I will,” he continued, busily writing away upon his slate.

“Yes, do please.”

“No,” said Chynoweth, rubbing it all off again with the sponge. “It’s of no use. He hasn’t the money.”

“Hasn’t the money?”

“No; it’s hard times with us now, Rumsey, I can tell you, and where it’s all gone I can’t tell.”

“But I’m really in distress,” said the doctor. “There are several bills I must pay. I can’t put them off.”

Chynoweth looked at him, then at the slate, hesitated, thought, wrote “I O U fifty pounds” upon it, and rubbed it out, and ended by laying it down.

“Are you very hard up, Rumsey?” he said.

“I never was so pushed before,” said the doctor, dolefully. “Hang it, Chynoweth, I feel sometimes as if it is of no use to keep struggling on. It was bad enough before that scoundrel Trethick deluded me into buying those shares.”

“I don’t think Trethick is a scoundrel,” said Chynoweth, quietly.

“You don’t?”

“No; I believe he is as honest as the day.”

“Indeed?” said the doctor, in what was meant as a sarcastic tone. “Nice honesty. Let alone my case, look at Madge Mullion.”

“Ah, poor lass, he hasn’t behaved very well to her. That’s what I think. But look here, Rumsey, I’ve won a few pounds of you in my time.”

“Have you? Well yes, I suppose you have, Chynoweth. You always seemed to make more of a study of whist than I did.”

“Eh? Yes. Think so?” said Chynoweth, glancing at his desk-lid to see that it was close. “But look here, Rumsey, it’s of no use to ask the governor for money now.”

“But I must. What am I to do?”

“Well, look here, I’ll lend you fifty pounds.”

“You—you, Chynoweth?”

“Yes,” said the little man, quietly; and, without noticing the excited, overcome look of his visitor, he methodically wrote put an I O U, and placed it before him to sign.

“This—this is more than I expected of you, Chynoweth,” said the doctor, huskily.

“Well, do you know, Rumsey, it’s more than I expected of myself. But there you are,” he continued, taking notes to the amount from his pocket-book, “and pay me back a little at a time.”

“If I live I will,” said the doctor; and, hastily catching up the money, he hurried away to conceal his emotion.

“Poor old Rumsey!” muttered Chynoweth. “He’s a good fellow, and some of these days, I dessay, I shall have to be in his hands. Oh, you’re here again, are you?”

“Mr Penwynn in his room, Chynoweth?” said Tregenna, entering unceremoniously, and going towards the door of the banker’s sanctum.

“No, sir; not come yet,” said the clerk, rising.

“All right, I’ll wait. I want to write a letter or two.”

He walked in and shut the door, while Chynoweth resumed his place.

“Nice state of affairs,” he muttered. “Who’s master here now?”

John Tregenna evidently, for he made no scruple about taking Mr Penwynn’s seat at his table, and writing letter after letter, ringing twice for Chynoweth to answer some question, and then going on with his work, over which he had been very intent for quite an hour, when there was a tap at the door.

“Come in. Well, Chynoweth, Mr Penwynn arrived?”

“No, sir. Here’s a lady, sir, wants to see you. She says she has been up to your house, and they said you were here.”

“A lady? Is it Miss Penwynn?”

“No,” said a voice which made Tregenna sink back in his chair; “it is not Miss Penwynn;” and Madge Mullion, closely veiled, and looking tall in the thick cloak she wore, walked straight into the room.

Chynoweth hesitated for a moment, and then softly withdrew, nodding his head.

“So the devil is going to get his due, eh?” he said to himself. “I’d give something if I could go down to listening at key-holes, but I can’t do it—I can’t do it—I can’t do it!” and he went back to his desk.

“You here, Miss Mullion?” exclaimed Tregenna, making an effort to recover his composure.

“Yes, I am here,” she said, very sternly; and Tregenna noticed that it seemed to be no longer the weak, vain, flattery-loving girl who was speaking, but a woman made worldly and strong by trouble.

“And what can I do for you, Miss Mullion?” he said, coolly. “Will you take a seat?”

She stood gazing at him without speaking—without moving, while his dark, handsome face grew calmer and more composed.

“I came—to ask you—a question,” she said at last, in measured tones; and, as she spoke, she pressed one hand upon her breast, as if to aid her in speaking coolly.

“Certainly,” he said politely; “but this is not my office, Miss Mullion, and I have no right to transact legal business here.”

As he spoke he took a sheet of foolscap paper, and a fresh dip of ink, as if to make notes of her business.

“I came to ask you, John Tregenna,” she said at last, in answer to his inquiring look, “whether the report that I have heard is true.”

“Report? True?” he said. “Really, Miss Mullion—”

“I have heard,” she continued, speaking in a slow, painful way, every word sounding harsh and metallic, while her face was fixed and stony in its immobility—“I have heard a report that you are—to be married—to Rhoda Penwynn.”

“Well, really, Miss Mullion,” he said, smiling, “this is a strange question;” and he looked at her with an amused, perfectly unruffled expression.

“Is it true?” she said, in a louder voice, which Tregenna knew must reach the outer office.

“Well, really—it is somewhat strange that you should come and ask me such a question, Miss Mullion; but, since you have asked it—yes, I am.”

Madge raised her veil as he made this avowal, but it seemed to give her no shock; there was no trace of emotion in her face, as she gazed straight in his eyes.

“And what of me?” she said at last.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What of your child?” she said, in the same harsh ringing voice.

“Really, Miss Mullion, my poor girl,” he said, rising, “I fear you are ill.”

“Ill!” she said sharply; “very ill, but not so ill but that I can come to you now and ask for reparation for my wrongs.”

“Ask me, Miss Mullion? Poor soul!” he muttered; “she takes me for Trethick.”

Madge heard his words, and if any spark of love or passion remained for him in her breast, those words crushed it out. The weak girl had indeed become a woman now—a woman and a mother; and if John Tregenna, in a fit of remorse, had asked her then to be his wife, she would have refused, and gone on bearing the burthen of her shame.

“You pitiful, contemptible snake!” she said, speaking now in a low voice that thrilled him through and through. “I am mad, am I, John Tregenna? No, not now. I was mad to listen to and trust you—mad to believe that you would keep your word—mad, if you will, to take upon my poor weak shoulders the sin that was yours more than mine.”

“Miss Mullion!” exclaimed Tregenna, rising. “I must put an end to this painful interview;” and he laid his hand upon the bell.

“Do you wish Mr Chynoweth to hear what I am saying to you—what I intend to say to Rhoda Penwynn to-night when she returns from Truro—what I should have said to her to-day, after I had left you, had she been at home? If so, ring.”

Tregenna showed the first sign of weakness; his hand dropped from the bell, and he started as he heard poor Madge’s bitter laugh, realising more fully now than ever that the enemy in his path, instead of being a weak, helpless girl, had grown into a dangerous woman.

He had made a false step in his defence; but it was too late to retreat, and he kept boldly on.

“My poor girl,” he said kindly, “it would be affectation to pretend that I did not know your troubles, but pray be calm. Let me send some one with you home.”

“You pitiful coward!” she said again, and there was an intensity of scorn in her words that thrilled him through; “do you think if I had known you as I know you now that I would have kept your wretched secret?”

“Miss Mullion—”

“Have let insult, misery, and injury fall upon others’ heads, till I have been heart-broken over their sorrows, and yet in faith to you I would not speak. But it is over now. Mr Trethick knows the truth. To-night Rhoda Penwynn will know the truth. I came to you now more in sorrow than anger, believing that when you saw me, even if the report was true, that the sight of my poor thin face, and what you could read there of my sufferings, would move you to some show of pity for your miserable victim; but instead—Oh, God of heaven!” she exclaimed passionately, “how could I ever love this man?”

“Is any thing the matter, sir?” said Mr Chynoweth, opening the door. “Did you call?”

“No. Yes, Mr Chynoweth,” exclaimed Tregenna, excitedly. “This poor girl. She ought not to be away from home alone. I don’t think,”—(he touched his forehead).

“That I am in my senses, Mr Chynoweth,” said Madge sharply, as she drew down her veil; “but I am. John Tregenna, I shall keep my word.”

She went slowly out of the inner room and across the office, Chynoweth hastening after her to open the door, John Tregenna coming close behind, as if to see that Madge did not speak again; but she went away without a word.

“Poor creature!” exclaimed Tregenna. “I suppose I must not heed a word she said. Of course you did not hear, Mr Chynoweth?”

“No, sir, not a word hardly; only when she spoke very loud.”

“Ah, poor thing, her brain is touched, no doubt,” he said, as he returned to the inner room, where his countenance seemed to change in a way that, had she seen it, would have made Madge Mullion shrink from him in dread, and, perhaps, hesitate in her intention to go up and see Rhoda Penwynn some time that night.

Chapter Fifty Three.

By the Solemn Shore.

Geoffrey started off along the cliff with a strange feeling of dread in his breast, and as he hurried along it was with his eyes gazing down upon the shore, so that he passed without seeing that some one was seated on one of the blocks of stone by the old mine shaft, enjoying the sunshine and gazing apparently sadly out to sea.

He noted the two descending paths that were connected in his mind with poor Madge’s attempt to commit self-destruction, and hesitated as to whether he should descend; but he decided upon going on straight, first, to the town, and as he strode on he could not help sighing as he glanced at the buildings about Wheal Carnac.

“I wonder who bought it,” he said; and for a moment or two he mused upon old Prawle’s sulky indifference now that his coup had failed, and wondered whether it would be of any use to try for a post with the new proprietors.

“A nice character mine to go with,” he muttered. “Poor Madge! Where can she be? Has she gone up to Tregenna?”

The more he thought of this the stronger the idea became, and with a curious feeling of hope, that he vainly tried to crush down, rising in his breast, he went quickly on, to utter an ejaculation the next moment, for there was Madge walking towards him along the cliff.

“Why, Madge!” he exclaimed. “You quite frightened me. Where have you been?”

“Don’t touch me—don’t speak to me, Mr Trethick,” she said, in a sharp, harsh voice.

“But I shall speak to you, and I shall touch you,” said Geoffrey, with a quiet firmness. “There, let your arm rest there. Hang on to me as much as you like: you are weak and excited, and ready to faint. There, let’s walk steadily back. Don’t hurry. Take off your veil, and let the sea-breeze blow upon your face; it will revive you.”

“Oh—oh—oh!” came softly as a whisper from beneath that veil, as Geoffrey’s words seemed to change the spirit that was burning in the poor girl’s breast; and, weakly and helplessly enough now, she hung upon his arm, and suffered him to lead her onward towards the Cove.

At the end of a few hundred yards they drew near the opening in the huge cliff where the ruined engine-house and mining shaft were, and here they came suddenly upon old Mr Paul, sitting upon a block of stone, with his hands resting upon the head of his great cane.

The old man looked more himself, and there was a grim air of satisfaction in his face as he saw the couple approaching.

Geoffrey felt his companion give a spasmodic start, and she stopped short as if her legs had failed her, uttering at the same moment a low moan, as she saw her uncle rise from his seat and come towards them, looking first at one and then at the other. Then he just nodded his head at them gravely, and walked on in the opposite direction.

Geoffrey gave an impatient stamp with his foot as he turned and saw the old man disappear.

“Poor old boy!” he said. “There’s something about him I like, Madge, and I’m bursting with eloquence now—full of things I want to say to him, but hang me if I could speak when he was here.”

“Take me home,” said Madge, softly; “I mean to the Cove.”

Geoffrey saw she was weak and half fainting, so he hurried her along as fast as she could bear the effort until he had reached the descent to the cottage, where he had to lift her in his arms and carry her down the rest of the way.

In the afternoon, though, she revived rapidly, and Geoffrey noticed that she seemed none the worse for her unwonted effort, but rather, on the contrary, better and more energetic than she had been for months. He, however, bade Bessie to watch over her, and above all things not to let her go out again.

But Geoffrey’s thoughts were sent into a new channel in the course of the afternoon by a visit from Amos Pengelly, who came to him as he was walking up and down upon the cliff, thinking now of Rhoda, and whether the time had not come for him to leave Carnac; now of the mine, and whether, as a man, it was not his duty to try and find the new purchaser, and make known his knowledge.

“I might get a good post upon the strength of what I know,” he said to himself; “and that would be just like me—to climb up and succeed upon another man’s misfortunes. No: I’ll keep to my old way. The ship may drift: she cannot come to worse wreck than she is in now. Hallo, Pengelly.”

“How do, Master Trethick, sir?” said Amos; “I’ve brought you this.”

“This?” said Geoffrey, taking a letter from the miner’s hand, and turning it over to find that it was on old-fashioned paper, doubled in the old style, and sealed with a great patch of wax and a crest.

“Why, it’s from old Mr Paul,” he said, as he glanced at the crabbed characters.

“Yes, sir; he asked me to bring it down and wait.”

Geoffrey opened the missive, and found it very short, but he read in it the effect that that day’s meeting had had upon the old man. It was as follows:—

Dear Sir,—Will you come up and see me this evening? I want to ask a favour of you once more. What I have seen to-day makes me hope that you can now meet me in a better spirit. Yours faithfully, Thomas Paul.

PS. If you are in the spirit that I hope you feel, bring poor Madge.

Geoffrey Trethick, Esq.

“Geoffrey Trethick, Esquire! Ha, ha, ha! Poor old fellow! Esquire! A broken-down mining adventurer in a smuggler’s cottage. No, Master Paul, I am not in the spirit you mean, and it is of no use for us to meet and quarrel again.”

“Will you write an answer, sir?” said Pengelly, after watching Trethick for some minutes, as he read and re-read the letter, and then walked up and down talking to himself.

“Yes—no—yes—no. Wait a few moments, Pengelly. I have not yet made up my mind. Tell him—tell Mr Paul—yes, tell him that I will come up and see him this evening. I will not write.”

Pengelly nodded, and moved towards the cottage to get a sight of Bessie.

“Have you heard, sir, who has bought the mine?” he asked.

“No, Pengelly. I have been trying, but they keep it very quiet. You have heard nothing, I suppose?”

“Not a word, sir,” said Pengelly, with a sigh; and he went on into the cottage.

“Papa-in-law elect does not seem to give him so much of his confidence as he does me. However, just as he likes. Now what am I to say to the old man?”

He walked up and down thinking for a few minutes, and then decided that the time had come for him to speak out frankly all that he knew, and to refer them to Madge for the rest.

“Poor lass! I’ll speak up well for her sufferings. She has done wrong, but look at her. Poor lass! How a man can be such a scoundrel, and leave a poor weak girl to fight out her difficulties alone, is more than I can understand; and what Nature is about to allow it. Here’s poor Madge dying of consumption, and scouted as an outcast for her wrong, and the scoundrel who shared her sin—bah, no! who made her sin—is in high feather, and about to be rewarded for his goodness with a beautiful and loving wife—

“Oh!” he ejaculated, grinding his teeth; “if I think about it, I shall go mad;” and he set off down to the rough shore, where, in a reckless way, he set about wrenching over great blocks of the granite, telling himself he was looking for curious sea-anemones and star-fish, when it was to weary himself out by his tremendous exertion, and dull the aching misery of his thoughts.

It was quite evening when he returned to the cottage, and sat and chatted with poor Mrs Prawle for a time, before following the old wrecker down to his den below the cliff, and stopping with him to smoke a pipe.

The old fellow was more sociable than usual, and chatted about the mine and the chance they had lost, but in quite a friendly spirit.

“It wur a bad job, my lad, but I’m not so sore now. I’ve got enough for me, I dare say, but I’d liked to have seen ye doing a bit better.”

“Oh, I dare say my time will come, Master Prawle,” said Geoffrey, lightly. “But I must go now.”

“Go? Where are you going? It’s a gashly dark night.”

“Only as far as old Mr Paul’s. Madge’s uncle wants to see me.”

“Oh, ay,” said the old fellow, nodding. “Well, my lad, I hope good will come of it. Don’t keep too stiff an upper lip.”

Geoffrey looked at him sharply, and was about to speak, but he checked himself and started off.

“Why, where are you going?” said the old man.

“Down along by the shore,” replied Geoffrey.

“You’ll find it rough work.”

“So much the better. Tame me down, so that I sha’n’t fly out if I have such things said to me as you have just indulged in.”

As he said this he went on down to the rough granite-strewn shore, and began to thread his way amongst the blocks towards Carnac; but at the end of half an hour, it had grown so much darker, the effort was so great, and the difficulty of getting along had become so much more apparent, that he gave up, and made his way towards the cliff, so as to reach the road at last by the pathway on the Carnac side of the old adit, faint and completely overcome by his exertions by the time he reached the familiar path down which he had run to save poor Madge.

If Geoffrey had stopped at the cottage he would have seen that instead of quietly taking to her work, Madge was dressing herself to go out. This she seemed to be doing secretly, listening from time to time to make out whether Bessie was noting her actions, which plainly indicated an attempt to steal away unseen.

She was deadly pale, and evidently greatly agitated, but she dressed herself with much care, bestowing unwonted pains upon her hair; and at last, quite ready, she stood there listening and waiting for her opportunity.

This did not come for some little time, but at last Bessie was busy helping her mother to bed, and the baby was lying there fast asleep in its cradle.

There was no one to see her now, and, gliding out, Madge softly raised the latch of the door, and left it ajar, before returning to the cradle, throwing herself upon her knees, and clasping her little one to her throbbing heart.

“My darling!” she moaned.

But Geoffrey saw nothing of this, or he might have compelled her to stay, and not tempt the danger of a walk along the cliff path on such a night. He was, however, playing no watcher’s part, and there was no one to see the hurried figure that almost ran out of the cottage at Gwennas Cove, with a long cloak huddled round it, so as to cover the sleeping babe as well.

The night had grown darker, but the pathway was perfectly familiar to her, as it had been from childhood; and, thinking more of her mission than of the child she held so carefully wrapped, she hurried on, gazing straight before her, so as to avoid slip or fall over some awkward mass of rock.

So deeply intent was the girl upon her mission that she did not see the figure of a man standing against the cliff face, just by the opening by the ruined mine; and, as she reached the spot, she was so taken by surprise that the cry that rose to her lips was checked on the instant by a fold of her own cloak.

It was a matter of moments. There was a feeble struggle, a hoarse, smothered cry, a violent thrust, and in the darkness the cloaked figure was seen to stagger back—totter—and then her assailant seemed to throw himself upon his knees, and rest there, panting and listening, till from far below there came up a hollow, reverberating plash as of some heavy body falling into the depths of the deserted mine. Then twice over there was a hoarse cry, and then a curious sound of splashing which rose in a horribly distinct fashion upon the black night air.

Then all was still.

Chapter Fifty Four.

John Tregenna’s Triumph.

The man rose softly then from his hands and knees, rubbing the former to get rid of the dirt that might be clinging there, and then taking out a white handkerchief to brush his knees—a needless operation, for the turf was short and dry, and left no marks.

Then, panting heavily, though his exertions had been slight, he stood listening again, not daring to go nearer to the edge of the shaft.

All was perfectly quiet, and, with a sigh of relief, he crept back to the pathway and listened.

All was still here too, but he could not flee yet without going back and searching about to see if there was any thing dropped—handkerchief, cloak, or the like.

But no; all was apparently as it should be, and he could find no trace; so once more going cautiously to the footpath, he listened, and, all being still, he walked swiftly in the direction of Carnac, till, reaching the path down to the shore, he turned down it quickly, and came in contact with Geoffrey Trethick.

“Hallo!” exclaimed the latter, sharply, “do you want to knock a man off the cliff? Oh, it’s you, Mr Tregenna!”

Tregenna did not answer, but, trembling in every limb, pressed on to reach the shore; but before he had gone many yards a malicious spirit seemed to tempt Geoffrey, and he called after the retreating figure,—

“If you are going to see Miss Mullion, Mr Tregenna, you will find the upper path the better.”

“Damn!” muttered Tregenna, as he almost staggered now down the cliff; “what cursed fate sent him here to-night?”

He was so completely unnerved by the encounter, that he paused for a few minutes to try and recover himself.

“If I could—if I could,” he muttered; “but he is too strong. My God! what shall I do?”

The horror of discovery was so great that for a time he could not proceed, and in imagination he saw the body of his victim brought to the surface, and Geoffrey Trethick bearing witness of having seen him near the spot.

By degrees, though, he grew calmer, as he felt there was very little chance of poor Madge’s body ever being found, the old shaft being many hundred feet deep. Besides, there was nothing to make people think she had been thrown down there. Even if she were found, was it not far more probable that she had committed suicide, especially as she had attempted it once before?

“I’ll not go,” he muttered. “Better to face it out. Bah! there is nothing to face.”

He stopped and lit a cigar, the necessity for concealment having gone. Geoffrey had spoiled that portion of his plan, namely, to reach the other side of the town unseen. On the contrary, he felt now disposed to court observation, and walked on smoking along the rugged shore to the slope by the harbour, up which he passed, exchanging greetings with Tom Jennen and one or two men who were leaning over the rail that protected the edge of the cliff.

“It’s gashly dark night, sir. Bad walking down there, bain’t it?”

“Well, yes, it is rough,” said Tregenna, “but it does for a change.”

“Hah!” he ejaculated, taking a long breath, as he walked slowly up towards An Morlock; “it is hard work, but I dare say I can manage to keep cool.”

But he could not, for once more a sensation as of panic seized upon him, and something seemed to urge him to fly for his life before it was too late. For he recalled Madge’s visit to him, and Chynoweth’s knowledge of that visit, and what she had said.

On all sides black threatening shadows of impending danger seemed to rise about him, and it was only by a savage wrench that he tore himself from the spot, and went on to his own house, where he washed, and carefully brushed his clothes, after taking a goodly glass of brandy.

This last gave him the nerve he had lost, and, feeling calmer, he went out once more into the cool night air.

Here he lit a fresh cigar, and at last, perfectly calm and unruffled, he went up the drive to the great house, gazing about him with a satisfied air, as if he claimed the place now as his own, and, nodding to the servant who admitted him, he took off hat and gloves, crossed the handsome hall, and stepped into the well-lit drawing-room.

Rhoda was speaking angrily as the door closed behind him, and she did not hear his entry. It was evidently her final remark after much that had gone before, and John Tregenna stood there paralysed, as the words fell from her lips.

“I’ll not believe it,” she cried. “Mr Trethick must have sent you here. What proof have you that Mr Tregenna is the wicked man you say?”

“His own looks,” said Madge, as she stood there with flashing eyes and ashy face, seeming to the wretched man like some avenging spirit pointing at him with white and quivering hand. “Ask him, if you will, though you can read the truth there. Now, Miss Penwynn, can you marry such a man as this?”

Rhoda made no answer, for John Tregenna’s brain had reeled. He had made two or three attempts to master, his craven dread, but in vain. Not an hour ago he had cast, as he believed, Madge Mullion down that hideous chasm in the earth, had heard her dying shrieks; and then, gloating over his release from one who would have blasted all his plans, he had come straight on to An Morlock, to find her standing pointing at him with denouncing finger, and telling Rhoda Penwynn of his guilt.

He had striven, fought like a drowning man, but in vain; and, after clutching at a table to save himself, he fell with a heavy crash upon the floor.

Chapter Fifty Five.

Sisters in the Flesh.

Madge kissed her child passionately again and again before replacing it in the cradle. Then she rose to steal to the door, but she could not go without running back to her helpless infant, which seemed somehow that night to draw her to its side.

It was as if she felt a presentiment that she was bidding it good-by forever, and, taking it to her breast once more, she rocked herself to and fro, sobbing over it silently, as she listened to the voices in the next room.

“He told Bessie not to let me go out again, I’m sure,” she thought to herself; and, feeling that if she meant to go she must go at once, she unwillingly laid down the child after a passionate embrace, and went softly out into the dark night.

She was very weak, and panted with the exertion as she reached the top of the ascent, but here she felt the sea-breeze, and, glancing round for a few moments as she tried to regain her breath, she noted one or two things that pointed to the coming of a storm before many hours had passed. The lights on the point across the bay loomed up so that they were plainly to be seen, and her sea-side life made her read tokens of the tempest in the direction and sound of the wind.

She set off with the intention of going straight along the cliff path to the town, and then up to An Morlock, where she would see and tell Rhoda Penwynn all; but she had not gone far before a horrible feeling of dread began to oppress her. She recalled Tregenna’s looks when he had heard her threat, and she felt now as certain as if she saw him before her that he would try and stop her.

“And if he does meet me?”

She stopped, shivering. Her blood seemed to run cold, and a nameless horror crept over her as she thought of what might be the consequences.

The chill of horror increased, for she dreaded that he would kill her, and now she felt that she would like to live.

Geoffrey Trethick had told her that she should live for the sake of her little one, and for its sake she would forget the world and its bitter ways. She had something indeed to live for now, and she blessed Geoffrey in her heart for awakening her to that fact.

Inspired by this idea, then, she went on cautiously, and with a step as light as that of some bird; but she saw nothing to cause her fear, and began to think that the darkness would befriend her, and hide her from the sight of any watcher who would stop her on her way.

She had already passed the rough path down to the shore, the one up which Geoffrey Trethick had carried her on that terrible night, at the recollection of which she shuddered, and still there was no sign of danger; when suddenly she stopped short, for ahead of her in the darkness there came, plainly heard, the impatient hiss that one might make by a hasty drawing-in of the breath.

She knew the sound. She had heard it more than once, when he had been waiting for her down by Wheal Carnac when it was in ruins, and now he was waiting for her again by this ruined pit—for what?

For a moment her heart beat wildly, and her imagination told her that, perhaps, after all, he had come in love to ask her forgiveness, and to take her once more to his breast.

Then the tumultuous beating gradually grew calmer and then nearly stopped, as a chill of horror seized upon her. It was not in love that he had come, but in hate; and trembling, and with her brow wet with terror, she crept softly back, reached the path, and descended its dangerous steep to the shore, crept cautiously along and by the mouth of the old adit, hardly daring to pass it, lest the sound of her step should go up to where Tregenna was watching for her a couple of hundred yards away, and ended by reaching the other path down which she had frantically run to cast herself into the sea, glided softly up it, reaching the regular cliff way again; and then, but always with the dread upon her that Tregenna was in pursuit, she hurried onwards towards Carnac churchtown.

The poor girl shivered as she passed the lane leading up to the cottage, and there was a longing, yearning look in her eyes as she turned them in that direction; but she kept steadily on till she reached the gate at An Morlock, where, after a little hesitation on the part of the servant, she was admitted, and at length shown into the drawing-room, where Rhoda stood, cold and stern, silently regarding her, and with her eyes seeming to do all the questioning part.

For a time they stood gazing at each other, till Rhoda, from her proud position of vantage, began to feel that there was strength in the standing-place of her erring sister—the strength that comes from being hedged round by weakness; and, after a few minutes’ silence, there was that in Madge’s large eyes and pallid face that quite disarmed her. The stern, harsh manner passed away, and she placed a chair for her visitor.

“Will you sit down?” she said softly.

Those few gently-uttered words affected Madge strangely. She took a couple of steps forward, and then in an instant she was at Rhoda’s feet clinging to the skirt of her dress, and sobbing as if her heart would break. So violent was her agitation that Rhoda grew at length alarmed, and had serious thoughts of summoning assistance; but, on trying to move to the bell, she found Madge clinging to her tightly.

“No, no,” sobbed Madge, “don’t leave me—don’t go away till you have heard all, and tried to forgive me. Oh, Miss Penwynn, why do you hate me? Why do you think such evil of me as you do?”

“I think evil of you?” said Rhoda, with a touch of scorn in her voice that she could not repress. “Madge Mullion, you had passed out of my thoughts.”

“It is false,” cried Madge, looking up sharply. “You think of me every day, and hate me because you think I came between you and your lover.”

“Have you come here to insult me—to tell me this?” cried Rhoda, trying to release her skirt.

“To tell you, not to insult you,” said Madge, clinging the more tightly as she felt Rhoda’s efforts to get free. “It is I who ought to reproach you, who are blind and mistaken; it is you who have come between me and mine.”

“Will you loose my dress?” panted Rhoda, growing excited now; “will you leave me?”

“Not till I have told you all,” cried Madge. “Miss Penwynn, I don’t think I have long to live. I could not tell you a lie.”

“It was mad and foolish to let you be admitted,” cried Rhoda, angrily. “You wicked girl, I thought you had come to me for help, and I would not send you empty away, but you insult me for my forbearance.”

“No,” said Madge, hoarsely. “I came to help you, not to ask for help. I feel free to speak now, and I tell you, Rhoda Penwynn, that you have cast away the truest man who ever saw the light.”

“You wicked girl! Go: leave me,” panted Rhoda. “I will not listen;” but she struggled less hard.

“You shall listen for his sake, if I die in saying it,” panted Madge, as she twisted the stout silk more tightly in her hands, “Mr Trethick never said word of love to me. He never looked even lovingly in my eyes, though, in my pique, I tried to make him, for he loved you too well.”

“It is false—he sends you here to insult me,” panted Rhoda, “and to plead for him. I will have you turned from the house.”

“It is true,” cried Madge; “and you turn from this true, honest gentleman, whose clear, transparent heart you might read at a glance.”

“This is unbearable,” cried Rhoda, bending down and catching at Madge’s hands, to try and tear them from her dress.

“You may beat me and fight as hard as you like,” cried Madge. “I am weak and helpless; but I can cling to you till you have heard, and you shall hear all.”

“I will not—I can not hear it; it is too late,” cried Rhoda, ceasing to drag at Madge’s hands, and once more trying to leave the room.

But, though she struggled hard, she found that she only drew Madge over upon her face, and that the poor creature clung to her more tightly than ever.

“It is too late; I can not—I will not hear you;” and she stood with her fingers thrust into her ears.

Madge turned her face up to her sidewise, and a sad smile trembled about her thin, pale lips as she said softly,—

“You must hear me—you cannot help hearing me; and it is not too late. I tell you that you threw aside that true-hearted gentleman, who is all that is manly and good, and now you have stepped into my place, to take to your heart my betrayer, the father of my poor, helpless babe.”

Rhoda’s hands dropped to her sides. She had heard every word, and, unable to resist the desire to know more, she went down upon her knees, caught Madge by the shoulders and gazed fiercely in her eyes.

“This is not true,” she cried. “Wicked, false woman, you have come to blacken Mr Tregenna’s character to me.”

“Blacken his character!” cried Madge, half scornfully. “You have lived here all your life, and know all that I knew before I weakly listened to his lying words, thinking that I was so different from others who had gone before. Tell me, Rhoda Penwynn, would what I say make his character much blacker than it is?”

Rhoda groaned, and her hands left Madge’s shoulders to clasp each other, while she raised herself once more erect, to stand with her broad forehead knotted and wrinkled by her thoughts.

“And yet you listen to him—you consent to be his wife,” continued Madge. “Oh, Miss Penwynn, if not for my sake, for your own, don’t let me leave you to-night feeling that my journey has been in vain.”

“It is not true,” cried Rhoda, rousing herself once more, and speaking with stubborn determination not to believe the words she heard, and fighting hard against her heart, which was appealing so hard for the man she really loved. “Get up. Leave this house.”

Madge stood up now angrily, and faced her.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ll go, but you have heard the truth; and I’ll come between you at the church, and claim him, for he swore that I, and I only, should be his wife.”

“I’ll not believe it,” cried Rhoda, passionately. “Oh, would to God I could!” she moaned.

“You do believe it,” continued Madge.

“No, no; I’ll not believe it,” cried Rhoda. “Mr Trethick must have sent you here.”

The next minute she was gazing down at John Tregenna’s ghastly face, as he lay where he had fallen, while Madge was looking at him cold, stern, and unmoved.

“Do you believe me now?” said Madge.

Rhoda did not answer, but stared in a horrified way from one to the other, as Mr Penwynn and a couple of the servants came hurrying in; and when they had succeeded in reviving the fallen man, Madge had quietly left the house.

“Let me go home,” said Tregenna, hoarsely, as his eyes wandered round the room in a curiously wild manner. Mr Penwynn spoke to him, but he only shuddered and shook his head, repeating his request so earnestly that he was assisted home, and Dr Rumsey passed the rest of the night by his side.

Chapter Fifty Six.

Geoffrey’s Boast.

“Well, Mr Paul,” said Geoffrey, speaking in his bluff, frank way; “I said I would never come back to this house till you sent for me, and I have kept my word.”

“Yes, yes,” cried the old man, shaking his hand warmly. “I have sent few you—God bless you, boy. I am glad to see you here again.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Geoffrey, for poor Mrs Mullion had thrown her arms round his neck, kissed him, and laid her head upon his shoulder, sobbing as if her heart would break. “Mrs Mullion,” he continued, putting his arm round her and patting her shoulder, “come, come, come, be a woman, and let’s talk and see if we can’t put this unhappy affair all right.”

“Yes, yes,” she sobbed, raising her face and clinging to him still; “I always liked you, Geoffrey Trethick, and you will—you will try. You have been so good to my poor darling in other ways. We have known every thing, though we have kept away. Mr Paul here said it would be a lesson for you both, but I’ve gone down on my knees every night, Geoffrey, and prayed for you both, and that your heart might be softened; and now, my boy, have pity on her poor mother, who prays to you for justice to her weak, erring child—who prays to you on her bended knees.”

“No, no, no, my poor soul,” said Geoffrey, kindly, as he held her up. “There, there, don’t kneel to me. Come, sit down,” he cried, kissing her pleasant, motherly face; and the tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. “Come, Uncle Paul, let us try if we cannot see daylight out through this miserable fog.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old man, who was standing with his head bent. “Yes, yes,” he continued, heartily; “sit down—sit down, my boy. We will have no more passion. It shall all be calm and quiet. Come, Geoffrey, you’ll smoke one of the old cheroots with me again?”

He smiled in the young man’s face as he took out his case.

“Indeed, I will,” cried Geoffrey, catching the old man’s hand and retaining it. “Why, Uncle Paul—old fellow, this is like the good old times.”

They sat there hand clasped in hand for some moments, and then the elder shook Geoffrey’s softly and let it go.

“Come,” he said, “light up. I want to talk to you.”

“Yes, let us light up,” said Geoffrey. “Mrs Mullion, may we smoke before you? I don’t want you to go away.”

“Oh, no, I will not go,” said the poor woman, tenderly, as she hastened to hand them each a light.

Then they smoked for a few minutes in silence, Mrs Mullion at a sign from the old man bringing out his handsome silver spirit-stand and glasses, with hot water and sugar.

“Come, Geoffrey, my boy,” cried Uncle Paul; “mix for yourself, and let’s drink to the happy future.”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “we will; but, Uncle Paul, Mrs Mullion, let me say a few words first. I had a father who gave me all my early education—all that was not given by my tender, gentle mother. My father in his lessons to me taught me what his true, sterling character had been through life. ‘Jeff, my boy,’ he has said to me a thousand times, ‘when once you have put your hand to a task, keep to it till you have mastered it.’”

“Yes, yes, you learned your lesson well,” said the old man, nodding his head approvingly, for Geoffrey had laid his cigar on the edge of the table, where it burned slowly beneath its pearly ash, and had paused, as if waiting for him to speak.

“Another thing my father said, too, as many times perhaps, Mr Paul, was this: ‘Come rich, Jeff, come poor, strive to be a gentleman through life, and never let it be said of you that you told a lie.’”

“Good, yes—good advice, Geoffrey Trethick,” said the old man, smiling. “If I had had a son, I would have said the same.”

“Then, look here, Mr Paul,” cried Geoffrey, excitedly, as he rose up and towered in his manly strength above the little old yellow nabob. “I tell you this: I never knowingly yet told a lie, and, God helping me, I never will!”

There was a strange silence in that room as the young man’s distinct, loud voice ceased for a few moments, and mother and uncle sat eagerly waiting for his next utterances.

“Now that I have said that,” continued Geoffrey, “let me look you both in the face, and tell you that you have done me a cruel wrong.”

“A cruel wrong?” began the old man, hotly.

“Yes,” continued Geoffrey, “a cruel wrong. Poor Madge has spoken out at last; and so will I.”

“This is a cruel—”

“Wrong, Mr Paul,” said Geoffrey, smiling, and laying his hand upon the old man’s shoulder. “Uncle Paul, I like you,—I always have liked you; but you were unjust to me when you asked me to bear John Tregenna’s sin.”

The old man started back from him, his neck over the back of his chair, his withered throat stretched, and his lips parted, as he stared up in Geoffrey’s face. Then, as the whole truth seemed to come home to him, he caught at Geoffrey’s hand, and, trembling, and in broken accents, began to plead for pardon.

“My poor boy—my brave boy—my poor boy!” was all, though, that he could stammer; and, in his abject misery, he tried to struggle from his chair upon his knees: but, as soon as Geoffrey realised the truth, he smilingly held the old man in his place.

“No, no, Uncle Paul,” he said. “Stand up, old fellow, and give me your hand, like the true, chivalrous old gentleman you are, and let us understand each other once and for all. Come, you forgive me now?”

“Forgive you?” faltered the old man. “My boy, can you forgive me?”

“Your hand too, Mrs Mullion. Do you doubt my word?”

“Oh, no, no!” sobbed the poor woman, sadly, for matters had not turned out as she wished, and her tears were falling fast, when Geoffrey exclaimed sharply, and held out his hand,—

“There is some one listening! Quick; there is something wrong.”

He ran to the door, and as he flung it open there was a hasty step upon the gravel, and then a heavy fall.

The next moment he was raising the insensible form of poor Madge from the path, for she had been unable to resist the temptation to steal up and have one more glance at the old home before returning to Gwennas, but her strength was exhausted now; and when, after being carried into the house and laid upon the sofa, Mrs Mullion threw herself sobbing upon her knees beside her child, Geoffrey placed his hand upon the old man’s shoulder, and pointed to the pair.

“Is she to stay, Uncle Paul?” he said, softly.

“God forgive her as I do, my boy,” the old man replied, in a broken voice. “I need ask for pardon as well as she.”

Geoffrey hesitated about leaving, but, on looking into the room again, he saw mother and child clasped in each other’s arms, and he stole softly away to where Uncle Paul stood in the doorway.

“Come,” said Geoffrey. “I must have another cheroot, Uncle Paul, and then for home.”

“Home?” said the old man, gently; “will you not come here once more?”

“Yes—no—yes—no; I cannot say to-night, but whether I do or no, old fellow, the good old days shall come again for us. Why, Uncle Paul,” he cried, puffing away at his fresh cheroot which he had lit from that in the old man’s lips, and laying his hands upon his shoulders, “if it were not too late we’d go into the summer-house and have another row. Hallo! who’s this?”

For hasty steps were heard coming up towards the gate, and a hoarse voice cried,—

“Trethick—Master Trethick! Pengelly said Master Trethick had come up here.”

“Prawle,” cried Geoffrey. “You here! Why, what’s wrong?”

“Murder’s what’s wrong,” cried the old man, hoarsely. “Quick, man, quick! You come along o’ me.”

Chapter Fifty Seven.

A Struggle for Life and Death.

Bessie was rather longer than usual with her mother that night, but at last the invalid was comfortably settled, and when she went back into the sitting-room the child was just beginning to be restless.

“Will you come and stay with him a minute, Madge?” she said. “I’ll be back directly;” but there was no answer.

“Madge! Madge!”

Bessie felt frightened. She could not tell why, but, with a feeling that something was wrong, she ran to Madge’s room, but only to find it empty, and her hat and cloak gone.

“And Mr Trethick told me not to let her go again!”

Bessie felt more troubled than she could express, and, recalling Madge’s strange and excited ways, she felt now sure that there was something wrong.

“I might overtake her if she has gone along the cliff,” she said to herself; and, without hesitation, she threw on her cloak and hat, and had gone to the door ready to run up to the cliff, when the little one began to remonstrate loudly about being left alone.

For the moment Bessie thought of calling up her father from his den down below, but as quickly she thought that if any desperate idea was in poor Madge’s brain, the sight or touch of her child might act upon her more strongly than words; so, catching up the little one, she curled it up tightly in the cloak she wore, and started off, meeting John Tregenna, and in her surprise, and the suddenness of the attack, being hurled back helpless towards the brink of the old shaft, down which the next instant she was falling.

Even in the horror of those awful seconds, she clutched her burthen tightly, and, with her thoughts coming fast, and seeming to lengthen out the time, she felt herself falling—falling, as she had often dreamed of going down in some terrible nightmare.

Twice over she brushed against the side, and she knew that she had turned completely over in her descent. Then there was the shock of her plunge into the deep black water, and all seemed to be over.

She had some recollection of having shrieked, but it was faint. What she did realise the most distinctly was her plunge into the cold water, and then going down half stunned for some considerable time before she began to struggle wildly, and rose to the surface.

All was black around her, but she could for the moment breathe, and beat about with her hands, which touched the wall of rugged granite; and trying to cling to and thrust her fingers into its irregularities, she kept herself up for a few moments, during which the frantic feeling of fear which had mastered her seemed to die away; but the next minute her fingers had slipped from their frail hold, and she had again gone under.

She rose again directly, for Bessie was a stout swimmer and had been from a child; and as she struck out, panting and gasping, she swam now to the other side, and then, striking out with one hand, she kept beating the other against the wall of rock that formed the sides of the square shaft, and sent up a despairing cry for help.

Poor girl, she might have cried the night through and been unheard. She knew it, too, as she felt herself growing fainter, her clothes crippling her limbs as they clung to them, and in another few moments she knew that she would be exhausted.

“It is murder,” she moaned. “Help, help!”

She had already swum along three sides of the shaft, when, as she reached the fourth, her hand and arm passed in, and she uttered a cry of joy, striking out vigorously, and finding herself swimming in an opening for a few strokes, when she struck again against the rock, and the chill of the horror of impending death once more came upon her. After a few more vain struggles, she clung to the slimy rocks, feeling herself sink, and that life, now dearer than she could have believed, was ebbing away. But as she felt this her limbs rested upon the bottom of the opening into which she had swum, and she knew now that she was in the adit or passage that carried off the water from the old pit, when it reached a certain height.

It was some minutes before she could subdue the trembling that shook her limbs, and summon courage enough to move, lest in that hideous darkness she should go the wrong way, and sink back into the deep water; but, as she grew more collected, she felt that if she crawled onward she would be right; and so it proved, for, dragging herself on to the rock, she was the next minute on the rough floor of the adit, kneeling in an inch or two of water; and here, sinking lower, she covered her face with her hands, thrust back her streaming hair, and burst into a passion of hysterical sobbing, as she prayed that she might be saved from this horrible death.

She was mad almost with terror for the time, but by degrees she grew calmer, and, putting out her hands, she touched the walls on either side, and just above her head.

“I know where I am,” she said aloud, “only I’m frightened and confused, and—Oh, God of heaven, Madge’s child!”

Her hands went down to her breast as if expecting to find it clinging there, and then, chilled once more with horror, she remained there in the horrible darkness, afraid to move, as she tried to realise whether the little thing had fallen with her.

She put her hands to her throat again.

The cloak was gone—it had broken away at the fastening in her frantic struggles for life.

She hesitated, but as she did so, she seemed to see the pale, white figure of Madge rising up before her, and saying to her, “Give me my child;” and, rousing herself to her terrible task, she slowly crept back into the water—in the shallow part within the adit—and waded step by step back three or four yards till, feeling cautiously with one foot before her, she found that she had reached the brink; another step, and she would be once more over the deep water, where it went down hundreds of feet into the bowels of the earth.

She dared not swim out, but, holding by the rugged wall of the adit, she thrust out her hand along the surface, feeling as far as she could reach again and again, here and there, but there was nothing; and she crossed to the other side, held on, and tried again, feeling giddy as she did so, and as if she dared do no more lest she should step back into that horrible pit.

Then her heart gave a wild throb, for her right hand touched something—her cloak, and she drew it softly towards her, backing more and more into the adit, as she gathered the cloth into her hands, and uttered a cry of joy.

The babe was there, twisted in the folds of the great cloak which had floated with it, holding within its saturated cloth plenty of air to keep the little thing upon the surface.

With the water streaming from her, Bessie crept on to the rocky floor of the adit, and, panting and sobbing hysterically, she hastened to unwind the clinging covering from the helpless babe; but, in the darkness and confusion, it was some minutes before she got it free and held it to her dripping breast, kissing it, holding it to her lips to feel whether it breathed, forgetting her own terrible position as her thoughts all went to her little charge, and calling it by the most endearing names.

There was no response, no fretful cry, no shriek of pain or suffering; the little thing lay inert in her arms, and in her agony, as a fresh horror burst upon her, Bessie spoke to it angrily, and shook it.

“Cry!” she exclaimed. “Oh, if it would only cry! Baby, baby! Oh, heaven help me! it is dead—it is dead!”

She held it tightly to her breast for a moment or two as she knelt there, rocking herself to and fro. Then a thought struck her, and, changing her attitude to a sitting position, she held the little thing in her lap, wrung out the cloak as well as she could, and wrapped the child in it once more to try and give some warmth to its little fast-chilling limbs. As she did so, Bessie felt how dearly she had grown to love the little helpless thing whose mother’s illness had made it so dependent upon her.

“Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?” she sobbed at last. “Will no one help me? Mr Trethick! Father! Help!”

“I might as well cry to the sea,” she moaned at last, as she held the baby more tightly to her breast. “Now let me try and think, or I shall go mad.”

She remained perfectly motionless, with her teeth set fast, for a few minutes, beating down the horror that threatened for the time to wreck her reason.

“I can think now,” she said. “He threw me down the old shaft, and I got into the adit, where I’m kneeling. If I try, how can I get out?”

She thought again, but she was so confused by her fall that it was some time before she could realise the fact that she might creep through this old passage hewn in the rock, and, if not stopped by a fall from the roof, come out upon the shore.

“But the winzes!” she said, with a shudder. “The winzes!”

It was well for her that, as a miner’s daughter, she called to mind the fact that, in all probability, the passage in which she knelt would have another parallel to it, some twenty or thirty feet below, and connected with it by one or two perpendicular well-like openings in the floor, openings which, like the passage below, would, of course, be filled with water.

Knowing that there were such dangers in her path, she at last started, creeping along on her knees, and, with one hand, feeling the way.

It was no such great distance, but, under the circumstances, it was painful in the extreme. Still her spirits rose as she went on, for at the end of five minutes there came to her the peculiar sound of the waves dashing upon the shore; and creeping onward, with her burthen clasped to her breast, and her head at times striking against the roof, she began to be hopeful that her worst troubles were to be the mud, and slime, and water through which she crept; when, all at once, the cautiously extended hand which guided her way, feeling ceiling, wall, and floor, went down into deep water, and she knew that she was on the brink of a pit, full to the brim, and this had to be crossed.

Bessie’s knowledge came to her aid, and, laying the baby tenderly down, she brought both hands to bear, feeling cautiously about to determine the width of the winze.

If it were across the adit it would be narrow, and she hoped to be able to step over; if it were cut in the other direction there might be a rocky shelf at the side giving sufficient room for her to pass.

It was cut across the adit, for she could feel the square edge of the rock from wall to wall; and rising and feeling about over it for a prominence in the wall by which she could hold on, she grasped it tightly, placed her right foot close to the edge, and leaned forward, trying with her left to reach the other side.

Yes, she was successful. They are economical of labour in digging through solid rock, and she found that the winze was but a yard across, so, drawing herself back, she caught up her burthen, hesitating for a moment, as she felt that a false step would plunge them both into the well-like opening. Then, bending low, she made as bold a stride as she could, crossed in safety, and once more resumed her cautious progress, till the sea-breeze fanned her cheek as she crept out amongst the rocks, and, falling upon her knees, she once more sobbed and prayed aloud.

Rousing herself, though, to a sense of her responsibility, she rose and hurried along the rugged shore beneath the cliff to the sloping path down which Madge had come some time before; and, climbing to the cliff path, she gave one frightened, unnerved look in the direction of the opening leading to the old shaft, and then ran painfully towards the cottage.

But Bessie’s strength was gone. Her run soon became a walk, her walk a tottering crawl, and it was with blanched face she at last staggered into the cottage, where her father was now seated, keeping up a blazing fire with wreck-wood to save the candle.

“Why, Bess, my lass!” he said.

“Oh, father, help!” she cried, in a hoarse, piteous voice, as she threw herself upon her knees by the fire to try and restore life to the little clay-clad form she held.

“Wet—drenched!” he cried. “In the sea?”

“No, father,” she moaned. “Quick—the doctor. Mr Trethick. He threw me down the old pit-shaft.”

“Trethick did?” roared the old man.

“No, John Tregenna; and he has killed his child.”

“As I will him,” roared the old wrecker, raising his fists to heaven. “So help me God?”

Chapter Fifty Eight.

A Strong Man’s Weakness.

“Here, speak out,” cried Geoffrey excitedly, as he hurried with old Prawle down towards the cliff. “What is it? What do you mean?” and as the old man hurriedly recited all he knew, Geoffrey felt his breath come thick and fast.

As they reached the cliff they came upon Dr Rumsey, who had been summoned by old Prawle before he had gone up to Mrs Mullion’s to find Geoffrey; and, after a distant salutation, the doctor began to question Geoffrey, but without avail. Then they went on in silence to find Bessie, with her wet dishevelled hair and clinging garments, still kneeling before the fire with Madge’s baby in her arms.

She looked up in a pitiful way towards Dr Rumsey as he entered, and rose stiffly and laid her little burthen upon the couch.

“A candle, quick!” cried the doctor; and Geoffrey lit one and placed it in the eager hands, to look on afterwards, in company with old Prawle, who stood there, with his hands deep in his pockets, scowling heavily at the scene.

Dr Rumsey’s examination was short and decisive.

“I can do nothing,” he said quietly. “Poor little thing, it has been dead some time.”

Bessie burst into a low sobbing wail, and crouched, there upon the floor; but she raised her face again with a wild stare as she heard Geoffrey speak.

“But try, doctor; for heaven’s sake try,” he cried.

“I know my business, Mr Trethick,” said the doctor coldly. “The child was not drowned. Place your hand here. Its head must have struck the rock. It was dead before it reached the water.”

Geoffrey Trethick—strong, stern, trouble-hardened man—bent down as he heard these words, and placed his firm white hand upon the dead child’s head, realising fully the doctor’s words. Then, raising the little corpse tenderly in his arms, he stood looking down in the white, placid face, the doctor and old Prawle watching him with curious eyes.

“My poor little man,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “My poor little man! Oh, baby, baby, I couldn’t have loved you better if you had been my own!”

As he spoke he raised the little thing higher and higher, and kissed its little lips and then its cold, white forehead, and the two men heard a sob start from his breast, and saw the great tears rolling softly down.

“Oh, Rumsey!” he groaned, “I’m afraid I’m a poor weak fool.”

He laid the little thing reverently upon the couch, and the doctor looked at him curiously, till he was recalled to himself by old Prawle’s hand laid upon his shoulder.

“See to her, doctor, she wants you badly;” and it was true, for Bessie had sunk back with her head against the couch.

“Where is Miss Mullion?” said the doctor. “I want some help.”

“At home, doctor, as bad as your patient there. You must be nurse and doctor too.”

Without a word old Prawle took a couple of strides across the room, and, lifting Bessie as if she had been a babe, he carried her into Madge’s chamber and laid her upon the bed. The motion revived her, though, and, after a few words of advice, the doctor went off homeward, and Geoffrey and old Prawle walked up and down the cliff, the father going in at intervals to see that Bess was sleeping comfortably, and listening at her door.

“Not to-night,” the old man muttered; “not to-night. I can’t go and leave my poor lass there, perhaps to die. It’ll keep a bit—it’ll keep a bit;” and he rejoined Geoffrey.

The next morning at daybreak they took a lantern and explored the adit, the old man pointing out the traces of Bessie’s trailing garments, and here and there a spot or two of blood upon the rock.

They crossed the winze, and Geoffrey wondered how a woman could have attempted it in the dark; and at last they stood in a stooping position at the end, looking at the black surface of the water in the old shaft, upon which was floating Bessie’s hat and the child’s hood.

They could not reach them, so they returned, old Prawle saying, in a curiously harsh voice,—

“She didn’t tell a lie, Master Trethick, eh?”

“A lie?” exclaimed Geoffrey. “It is too horrible almost to believe.”

“Horrible? Yes. Now let’s go and look at the pit mouth.”

Geoffrey followed him, feeling as if it were all part of some terrible dream, and wondering what effect it would have upon Madge.

“Why, Prawle,” he exclaimed, stopping short, “that villain must have thought he was throwing in mother and child.”

“Ay, I dessay,” said the old man. “No doubt, but it makes no difference to me. He threw down my Bess, and that’s enough for me. Come on.”

There was little to see on the turf by the old shaft after they had climbed the cliff; but, as Geoffrey went close to the mouth and looked down into the black void, he turned away with a shudder, wondering how any one could have been hurled down there in the darkness of the night, and yet have lived to see another day.

“Come away, Prawle,” he said hoarsely. “What have you got there?”

“Button off a man’s coat,” he said shortly. “Less than that’s been enough to send any one to the gallows. But I don’t want to send him.”

“No,” said Geoffrey; “the horror of what what he has done—the murder of his own child—will stay with him to his grave.”

“If he ever has one,” muttered Prawle.

Geoffrey looked at him searchingly, but the old man’s face was as inscrutable as that of a sphinx; and, leading the way back, he went down into his favourite place by the boat below the face of the cliff, and as soon as Geoffrey had made a hasty breakfast, which he found Bessie had prepared, he went off to the cottage to see Mrs Mullion, and tell her of the events of the past night.

Chapter Fifty Nine.

Jonah.

The threatening storm was giving abundant promise that it would soon visit Carnac; and warned by its harbingers, the various red-sailed luggers were making fast for the little port. Several had made the shelter behind the arm of masonry which curved out from the shore, and one of the last to run in was the boat owned by Tom Jennen and three more.

They had just lowered the last sail, and, empty and disappointed, they were about to make a line fast to one of the posts, when John Tregenna ran quickly down to where Tom Jennen stood upon the stone pier, rope in hand.

“Stop,” he cried.

“What’s the matter?” growled Jennen.

“I want you to take me across to—”

He whispered the rest.

“Storm coming. There’ll be a gashly sea on directly, master. Pay out more o’ that line, will you?” he bellowed. “Don’t you see she’s foul o’ the anchor?”

“Ten pounds if you’ll put off directly, and take me,” said Tregenna, glancing uneasily back.

“Wouldn’t go for twenty,” growled Jennen.

“Thirty, then, if you’ll put off at once.”

“Hear this, mates?” growled Jennen.

“No—er.”

“Here’s Master Tregenna says he’ll give us thirty poun’ if we’ll take him across to—”

“Hush!” cried Tregenna. “Yes, I’ll give you thirty pounds, my men.”

“There’ll be quite a big storm directly,” said another of the men. “Thirty poun’s a lot o’ money, but life’s more.”

“Fifty, then. Here, fifty!” cried Tregenna, desperately. “Fifty pounds, if you start at once.”

He took the crisp, rustling bank-notes from his pocket-book, and held them out, and it was too much for the men. They glanced at one another, and then their decision was made.

“Here, hand it over, and jump in,” cried Tom Jennen; and, thrusting the notes into his pocket, he pointed to the boat, and no sooner had Tregenna leaped in than, shortening his hold of the line, he began to pull, while his mates handled their hitchers to set the lugger free.

Another minute, and Tom Jennen had leaped aboard, and they were hauling up one of the sails, which began to flap and fill. Then one of them ran to the tiller, the lugger gathered way, and rode round to the end of the pier, rising to the summit of a good-sized wave, and gliding down the other side, as a little mob of people came running down the pier, shouting to them to stop.

“Take no notice. Go on,” cried Tregenna, excitedly.

“Why, what’s the matter?” said Tom Jennen, who, like his companions, was in profound ignorance of the events that had taken place while they were away.

“Keep on, and get out to sea,” cried Tregenna, fiercely. “I have paid you to take me, and you have the money.”

“Stop that boat,” roared old Prawle, who was now shouting and raving at the end of the pier. “Come back—come back.”

“Don’t listen to the old madman,” cried Tregenna. “Haul up the other sail.”

“We know how to manage our boat,” said Jennen, sulkily; but he seized the rope, one of the others followed his example, and the second sail rose, caught the wind, and the lugger lay over and began to surge through the wares.

“Stop that boat! Murder!” shouted old Prawle, gesticulating furiously, while those who were with him waved their hands and shouted as well.

“Why, there’s old Master Vorlea, the constable,” said one of the men; “and he seems to have gone off his head, too. What’s the matter ashore, Master Tregenna?”

“Matter? I don’t know,” cried Tregenna, hoarsely. “Keep on, and get me to Plymouth as quickly as you can.”

“We’ll try,” said Tom Jennen; “but with this gashly storm a-coming on we’ll never get out of the bay to-day.”

“But you must,” cried Tregenna, excitedly. “A man does not pay fifty pounds unless his business is urgent.”

“Or he wants to get away,” said Tom Jennen, surlily, as he looked back at the pier, now getting indistinct in the haze formed by the spray.

For the sea was rising fast, and as the fishers, who had made fast their boats within the harbour, joined the crowd staring after the lugger that had just put off, they shook their heads, and wondered what could have tempted Tom Jennen and his mates to go.

They were not long in learning that old Prawle had been after John Tregenna, charging him with the murder of the child, and the attempt to kill her he supposed to be its mother; but Tregenna seemed to have been seized by a horror of encountering Prawle, and he had fled as if for his life, while, with all the pertinacity of a bloodhound, the old man had tried to hunt him down, following him from place to place, where he sought for refuge, till, with the dread increasing in force, the guilty man had fled to the harbour, and, as the coach would not leave again till the next day, he had bribed the crew of the lugger to take him within reach of the railway.

As Prawle saw the boat get beyond his reach, he looked round for one to go in pursuit; and he turned to hurry back home, with the intent of putting off in his own, but as he did so his eyes swept the horizon, his life of experience told him what would follow, and he sat down upon one of the mooring posts with a low, hoarse laugh.

“Does Tom Jennen think he’s going to get out of the bay to-day?” he said.

“He’ll have hard work,” shouted the man nearest to him.

“Hard work? He’ll be running for home ere two hours are gone, if his boat don’t sink, for they’ve got Jonah on board yonder, and the sea’s a-rising fast.”

Chapter Sixty.

The Lugger Ashore.

By this time half the town was out to watch the lugger in which John Tregenna was trying to make his escape, and, the story of his wrong-doing having passed from lip to lip, the crowd upon the harbour wall and the cliff began rapidly to increase.

Geoffrey heard of what had taken place, and hurried down to the cliff, and old Prawle was pointed out to him seated upon the pier, where the sea was already beginning to beat furiously as the wind rapidly gathered force.

“Why, Prawle,” he cried, when he had hurried down to his side, “what have you been doing?”

“Doing, lad? Trying to do to him as he did to me and mine. He’s got away,” cried the old man, hoarsely; “but I’ll have him yet.”

“Yes, but you must leave him to the law,” cried Geoffrey. “Come: walk home with me. You must not take this into your own hands.”

“Come home!” said the old man, with a fierce look in his eye. “Yes, when I have seen him drown, for it will come to that before many hours are past.”

Finding him immovable, Geoffrey stayed by the old man’s side till they were driven back to the head of the harbour by the waves that now dashed right over the wall where they had been standing but a few minutes before; and from thence Prawle, after some three hours’ watching, climbed to the cliff, where he leaned over the iron rail and gazed out to sea through his hands, held telescope fashion.

“She’s labouring hard,” he said, with a grim chuckle, “and they’ve taken in all sail they can. Look yonder, Trethick: see. There, I told you so. Tom Jennen’s give it up, and he’ll run for the harbour now.”

Geoffrey strained his eyes to try and make out what the old man had described; but he could only dimly see the two-masted vessel far out in the hazy spray, and that she was tossing up and down, for the sea was rising still, and the wind rapidly increasing to almost hurricane force.

Old Prawle was right, as the excitement upon the cliff showed, for, after hours of brave effort, the crew of the lugger had proved the hopelessness of their task, and were now running for home.

What had been a long and weary fight in the teeth of the wind resolved itself into quite a short run, with scarcely any sail hoisted, and the great white-topped waves seeming to chase the buoyant lugger as she raced for shelter from the storm.

The fishermen stood watching her through the haze, and shook their heads as they glanced down at the harbour, where the rocks were now bare, now covered by the huge waves that thundered amidst them, tossing the great boulders over and over as if they had been pebbles, and leaving them to rumble back with a noise like thunder, but only to be cast up again. All the eastern side of the bay was now a sheet of white foam, which the wind caught up and sent flying inland like yeast; and so fierce was the wind now in its more furious gusts, that posts, corners, rocks, and the lee of boats were sought by the watchers as shelter from the cutting blast.

Old Prawle seemed to mind the furious gale no more than the softest breeze, and at length he descended the cliff slope towards where the waves came tumbling in a hundred yards or so beyond the end of the huge wall of masonry that formed the harbour; and as he saw the sturdy fishermen taking the same direction, with coils of rope over their shoulders, Geoffrey needed no telling that the lugger would come ashore there, for, if expected to make the harbour, the men would have made no such preparations as these.

As they went down along the rugged slope Geoffrey touched the old man on the shoulder, and pointed to the harbour.

“No,” shouted old Prawle, in his ear; “she can’t do it, nor yet with three times her crew.”

The crowd had rapidly increased, for it was known now that Tom Jennen’s “boot” must be wrecked, and quite a hundred men had gathered on the shore ready to lend a hand to save. No vessel could have lived in the chaos of foam between them and the lugger unless it were the lifeboat, and that was seven miles away, while the lugger was now not as many hundred yards.

Through the dim haze Geoffrey could make out the figures of the men on board when the lugger rose to the top of some wave, but for the most part they were hidden from his sight; and as he stood there, drenched with the spray, he shuddered as he thought of the fate of these, now so full of vigour, if their seamanship should really prove unavailing to guide them into a place of safety.

“Is there danger, Trethick?” said a voice at his ear; and, turning, there stood the Reverend Edward Lee, his white face bedewed with the spray, and his glasses in his hand, as he wiped off the thick film of salt water.

“I fear so. Poor fellows!” was the reply.

“Is it true that that unhappy man is on board?”

Geoffrey nodded, and their eyes met for a few moments.

“God forgive him!” said the vicar, softly. “Trethick, can we do any thing to save his life?”

As he spoke, Geoffrey for answer pointed to one of the huge green rollers that now came sweeping in, curled over, and broke with a roar like thunder upon the rocky beach.

“Nothing but stand ready with a rope,” was the reply; and then the two young men stood watching the lugger till one of the fishermen came up with a great oilskin coat.

“Put it on, sir,” he roared to the vicar. “It’ll keep some of it off.”

The vicar was about to refuse, but his good feeling prompted him to accept the offer, and a few minutes later another came up and offered one to Geoffrey, who shook his head, and, in place of taking it, stripped off his coat and moved farther down to meet the waves.

The vicar followed him quickly, for the crucial time had come. As far as those ashore could make out, the crew of the lugger had hoisted their fore-sail a few feet higher, and, as they raced in, there was just a chance that she might obey her rudder and swing round into shelter; but it was the faintest of chances, and so it proved.

On she came, light as a duck; and, as she neared the shore, she seemed almost to leap from wave to wave, till at last, when she came in, riding as it were upon one huge green wall of water, nearer and nearer, with the speed almost of a race-horse.

“Now—now—now, Tom!” rose in chorus, heard for a moment above the wind; and, as if in obedience to the call, the head of the lugger was seen to curve round, and in another minute she would have been in shelter, when, as if fearful of missing their prey, the waves leaped at her, deluging her with water; she was swept on and on towards where the crowd had gathered; and then there was a shriek as the lugger was seen to be lifted and dashed down upon the rocks—once, twice—and there was something dark, like broken timbers, churning about among the yeasty foam. The boat was in a hundred pieces tossing here and there.

For a few moments the fishermen ashore stood motionless, and then a man was seen to run out, rope in hand, into the white foam towards something dark, catch at it, and those ashore gave a steady haul, and one of the crew was brought in, amidst a roar of cheers, to where Geoffrey and the vicar stood.

Again there was a dark speck seen amongst the floating planks, and another man dashed in with a rope, and a second member of the little crew was dragged ashore.

Again another, who was stoutly swimming for his life, was fetched in; and almost at the same moment Geoffrey saw something that made his blood course fiercely through his veins.

“I can’t help it,” he muttered; “villain as he is, I cannot stand and see him drown.”

There was no momentary hesitation; but, drawing a long breath, he dashed into the foam that seethed and rushed up the shore, for his quick eye had detected a hand thrust out from the surf for a moment, and his brave effort was successful, for he caught the sleeve of one of the drowning men. Then they were swept in for a time but sucked back; and but for the aid lent by one of the fishermen with a rope, it would have gone hard with them, though, in the excitement, Geoffrey hardly realised the fact till he found himself standing in the midst of a knot of fishermen and the vicar clinging to his hand, but only for the clergyman to be roughly thrust aside by Tom Jennen, for it was he whom Geoffrey had saved; and the rough fellow got hold of his hand and squeezed it as in a vice.

“Where’s Mr Tregenna?” cried Geoffrey, hoarsely, as soon as he could get breath, for he had caught sight of the rough, dark figure of old Prawle running to and fro in the shallow white water where the waves broke up.

“Hasn’t he come ashore?” said Tom Jennen, with his face close to Geoffrey’s.

The latter shook his head and looked inquiringly at the rough fisherman; but Tom Jennen staggered away to sit down, utterly exhausted by his struggle.

Planks, a mast with the dark cinnamon sail twisted round it, the lugger’s rudder, a cask or two, a heap of tangled net, a sweep broken in half, and some rope—bit by bit the fragments of the brave little fisher-vessel came ashore, or were dragged out by one or other of the men; but though a dozen stood ready, rope in hand, to dash in amongst the foam and try to rescue a struggling swimmer, John Tregenna’s hand was never seen stretched out for help, nor his ghastly face looking wildly towards the shore. And at last, as the fragments of the lugger were gathered together in a heap, the crowd melted away, to follow where the half-drowned fishermen had been half-carried to their homes, and Geoffrey gladly accepted the hospitality offered to him by Edward Lee.

Tom Jennen had fared the worst, for he had been dashed once against a part of the lugger, and his ribs were crushed; but he seemed patient and ready to answer the questions of a visitor who came to him after he had seen the doctor leave.

“Were he aboard, Tom Jennen, when you tried to make the harbour?”

“Aboard? Who? Tregenna?”

“Ay.”

“Of course.”

“And he was with you when you struck?”

“Holding on by the side, and screeching for help like a frightened woman,” said Jennen.

“And where do you think he’d be now?” said the other.

“Drowned and dead, for he hadn’t the spirit to fight for his life,” said Jennen, “and I wish I’d never seen his face.”

“I’d like to have seen it once more,” said Tom Jennen’s visitor, grimly. “Just once more;” and he nodded and left the cottage.

“I don’t feel as if I ought to face my Bess till I’ve seen him once again,” he muttered, as he went on along the cliff path; “but I don’t know—I don’t know. He was too slippery for me at the last;” and old Prawle went slowly and thoughtfully homeward to the Cove.

Chapter Sixty One.

After Many Days.

“She’s better, Trethick, much better,” said Uncle Paul. “Poor child! I thought it was going to be a case of madness. But sit down, man, I’ve just got a fresh batch of the old cheroots.”

Geoffrey seated himself in the summer-house opposite to the old gentleman, with the soft sea-breeze blowing in at the open window; and for a time they smoked in silence.

“Mrs Mullion is going away, Trethick,” said the old man at last.

“Going away?”

“Yes; it will be better for Madge. Let them go somewhere to a distance. The poor girl wants change, and she’ll never be happy here.”

“No,” said Geoffrey, “I suppose not. Then you go with them?”

“I? No, my lad, I seem to be so used to this house that I don’t want to make a change. I can’t live much longer, Trethick, and I thought, perhaps, you would come back to the old place. There’ll be plenty of room for both of us, and we can smoke and quarrel in the old style.”

Geoffrey shook his head.

“I should like it,” he said; “but it won’t do, Uncle Paul. My career’s over here in Carnac, and I ought to have been off long enough ago, instead of idling away my time, and growing rusty.”