CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE OLD, HALF-FORGOTTEN JOKE.

“Has he gone?” Wenna asked of her sister the next day.

“Yes, he has,” Mabyn answered with a proud and revengeful face.  “It was quite true what Mrs. Cornish told me:  I’ve no doubt she had her instructions.  He has just driven away to Launceston on his way to London.”

“Without a word?”

“Would you like to have had another string of arguments?” Mabyn said impatiently.  “Oh, Wenna, you don’t know what mischief all this is doing.  You are awake all night, you cry half the day:  what is to be the end of it?  You will work yourself into a fever.”

“Yes, there must be an end of it,” Wenna said with decision—­“not for myself alone, but for others.  That is all the reparation I can make now.  No girl in all this country has ever acted so badly as I have done:  just look at the misery I have caused; but now—­”

“There is one who is miserable because he loves you,” Mabyn said.

“Do you think that Mr. Roscorla has no feelings?  You are so unjust to him!  Well, it does not matter now:  all this must come to an end.  Mabyn, I should like to see Mr. Trelyon, if just for one minute.”

“What will you say to him, Wenna?” her sister said with a sudden fear.

“Something that it is necessary to say to him, and the sooner it is over the better.”

Mabyn rather dreaded the result of this interview; and yet, she reflected to herself, here was an opportunity for Harry Trelyon to try to win some promise from her sister.  Better, in any case, that they should meet than that Wenna should simply drive him away into banishment without a word of explanation.

The meeting was easily arranged.  On the next morning, long before Wenna’s daily round of duties had commenced, the two sisters left the inn, and went over the bridge and out to the bold promontory of black rock at the mouth of the harbor.  There was nobody about.  This October morning was more like a summer day:  the air was mild and still, the blue sky without a cloud; the shining sea plashed around the rocks with the soft murmuring noise of a July calm.  It was on these rocks long ago that Wenna Rosewarne had pledged herself to become the wife of Mr. Roscorla; and at that time life had seemed to her, if not brilliant and beautiful, at least grateful and peaceful.  Now all the peace had gone out of it.

“Oh, my darling!” Trelyon said when she advanced alone toward him—­for Mabyn had withdrawn—­“it is so good of you to come!  Wenna, what has frightened you?”

He had seized both her hands in his, but she took them away again.  For one brief second her eyes had met his, and there was a sort of wistful and despairing kindliness in them:  then she stood before him, with her face turned away from him, and her voice low and tremulous.  “I did wish to see you—­for once, for the last time,” she said.  “If you had gone away, you would have carried with you cruel thoughts of me.  I wish to ask your forgiveness—­”