She lowered her voice, and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“Father, do you understand?  Here was a man without ruth or pity, and with a sore grudge in his black heart.  Was I to trust my Daddy to his hands, and him old and lame?” She paused another moment, then drew the Vicar close to her and whispered in his ear, “I cut the rope.  I knew he was followin’ me.  I let myself halfway down, then clung to the iron hold and cut the rope, with the knife I’d taken from him.  It was at the risk of my life I did it.  And he followed me, and he fell and was killed.  Father, will God punish me for it?  It has blighted my life.  I have never been like other women.  I never was wed, for how could I tend little children with blood on my hands?  And the children shrank from me, or I thought they did.  But it was for Daddy’s sake.  He had a happy old age, and he gave me his blessing when he died.  Father”—­her voice became almost inaudible—­“when I stand before God’s throne—­will God remember—­it was for Daddy’s sake?”

The failing eye was fixed on the pastor’s face, as if it would search his soul for the truth.  The fellow-being, on whom she laid so great a burden, for one moment, quailed:  then spoke assuring words of the mercy of that God to whom all hearts are open:  but already the ebbing strength, too severely strained in the effort of disclosure, was passing away, and the words of comfort were spoken to ears that were closed in death.

* * * * *

Under the South wall of the island burying-ground is a nameless grave:  where in the summer days fragments of toys and nose-gays are often to be seen scattered about; for the sunny corner is a favourite play-place, and the voices of children sound there; and they trample with their little feet the grass above Marie’s grave, and strew wild flowers on it.

IN A BRETON VILLAGE.

PART I.

In a wild and little-known part of the coast of Brittany, where, in place of sandy beach or cliff, huge granite boulders lie strewn along the shore, like the ruins of some Titan city, and assuming, here the features of some uncouth monster, there the outline of some gigantic fortress, present an aspect of mingled farce and solemnity, and give the whole region the air of some connection with the under-world,—­on this coast, and low down among the boulders out to sea, stands a little fishing village.

The granite cottages with their thatched roofs—­bits of warm colour among the bare rocks—­lie on a tongue of land between the two inlets of the sea, which, when the tides run high, nearly cut them off from the mainland.  Opposite the village on the other side of the little inland sea, is a second cluster of piled-up rocks thrust forth, like the fist of a giant, to defy the onslaught of Neptune, and on a plateau near the summit, is the skeleton of a house, built for a summer residence by a Russian Prince, who had a fancy for solitude and sea air, but abandoned for some reason before the interior was completed.  Solitary and lifeless, summer and winter, it looks silently down like a wall-eyed ghost over the waste of rocks and sea.