“But for what?” she asked.  “What made you do this terrible thing?  I thought he was liked by his men.”

“There was no one liked better, Miss Greendale; he was the most popular officer in the regiment, and if the soldiers had known it, and I had escaped being hung for it, I should have been shot the first time I went into action afterwards.  It had nothing to do with the army.  I enlisted in his company on purpose to shoot him.”

Bertha could hardly believe her ears.  She looked at the man earnestly.  Surely he could not have been drinking at that time of the morning, and she would have doubted his sanity had it not been for the calm and earnest look in his face.  He went on: 

“I came here to tell you why I shot at him.”

“I don’t want to hear,” she said, hurriedly.  “It is no business of mine.  I know that whatever it was Major Mallett must have forgiven you.  Besides, you saved his life afterwards.”

“Excuse me, Miss Greendale, but it is a matter that concerns you, and I pray you to listen to me.  You have heard of Martha Bennett, the poor girl who disappeared four years ago, and who was thought to have been murdered.”

“Yes, I remember the talk about it.  It was never known who had done it.”

“She was not murdered,” he said.  “She returned some months afterwards, but only to die.  It was about the time that Sir John was ill, and naturally you would have heard nothing of it.

“Well, Miss Greendale, I was at one time engaged to Martha.  I was of a jealous, passionate disposition, and I did not make enough allowance for her being young and naturally fond of admiration.  I quarrelled with her and the engagement was broken off, but I still loved her with all my heart and soul.”

Then he went on to tell of how maddened he had been when he had seen her talking to Major Mallett, and of the conversation he had overheard in her father’s garden, on the evening before she was missing.

“I jumped at the conclusion at once, Miss Greendale, that it was Captain Mallett, as he was then.  He had been round saying goodbye to the tenants that afternoon, and I knew that he was going abroad.  What could I suppose but that he had ruined my poor girl, and had persuaded her to go out to join him in India?  I waited for a time, while they searched for the body I knew they would never find.  My own father and mother, in their hearts, thought that I had murdered her in a fit of jealous rage.  At last I made up my mind to enlist in his regiment, to follow him to India, kill him, find her, and bring her home.”

“How dreadful!” the girl murmured.

“It was dreadful, Miss Greendale.  I believe now that I must have been mad at the time.  However, I did it, but at the end failed.  Mercifully I was saved from being a murderer.  As I told you, I was badly wounded.  I thought I was going to die, and the doctor thought so, too.  So I sent for Captain Mallett that I might have the satisfaction of letting him know that it was I who fired the shot, and that it was in revenge for the wrong that he had done Martha.