Three times Howel turned the sheet of paper that he was reading, as if he had not understood the words that were written on it, and then he uttered a groan, so deep and loud, that Rowland could restrain himself no longer, but said,—­

’Howel, for her sake, listen to me, her brother.  Look on me as your friend, your brother.’

Howel looked up, and for one moment there was remorse and agony in his face; the next, no stone was harder and colder.

‘Brother!’ he said, with a voice of icy sarcasm, ’you have shown yourself my brother of late!  I saw you in the court, cold and calculating; not a word for this, your brother!  Bah!’

‘What would you have had me say?’ asked Rowland, recovering his composure, and glancing from Howel to Netta’s letter.

’I understand you; you mean that I murdered her.  I did, virtually.  Then why be hypocrite enough to call me brother?’

‘She forgave you, and called you husband.’

‘Because she—­she loved me.’

There was another involuntary groan, and a brief silence.

‘Where are her papers?  Give them me, and go,’ said Howel imperatively.

Rowland put a neatly-sealed packet on the table, on which was written,
’For my husband, Howel Jenkins;—­to the care of my brother, Rowland
Prothero.  Janetta Jenkins.’

‘This, too, she left for you,’ said Rowland, putting the small Testament, originally her mother’s, on the table.  Again the stony lips trembled, the eyes softened.  ‘Howel, Howel, for her sake!’ once more ventured Rowland.

There they lay—­the letter, the packet, the Testament.  All that was left to him of the once bright, loving, and lovely creature, who had been devoted to him all her life.

He turned the leaves of the Testament mechanically; touched the packet—­shuddered; then leaning his head upon his folded arms on the table, burst into an uncontrollable agony of grief.

‘She is—­she was—­where?’ he said, after a short interval, rising from his seat, and beginning to pace the cell.

’Her soul is in heaven, I hope and believe; her body rests in Llanfach churchyard, under the large hawthorn bush near the vicarage gate.’

Often and often had Howel gathered Netta bunches of May from that very tree that now sheltered her remains.

‘Tell me—­tell me all,’ he said, ’from the time I left her, till—­how you found her—­everything.’

‘You must sit down, Howel, and hear me patiently if you can.’

Howel sat down on the bedstead, and again covering his face with both hands, listened; whilst Rowland took the seat he had left, and fulfilled his bidding.