She was screaming, poor girl, and Jasper Tuite struck her on the mouth.  And what would my Luke do save spring on to Jasper Tuite and close with him?  And Jasper Tuite would have shot him if Luke had not fired in self-defence.  No jury would have convicted Luke, for Jasper Tuite died from heart-failure, not from the flesh-wound of Luke’s pistol.  But if I had only been here when he stole here under cover of the darkness I would have made him hold his ground.”

“And he saw Miss Standish instead?”

“Yes, he saw Joan.  And she kept his messages all these years.  There was more than that.  I was to send him a message to where he was in hiding, waiting for a passage to America.  I sent him none, but Joan sent him one instead.  She was jealous, terribly jealous, or she could not have done it, poor girl.  She sent him word that he was not to return, that Jasper Tuite was dead of his wound.  Also she sent him word from me that I wanted no more of him.  How could he have believed it?  Well, the remorse of it has gone far to kill her.  If she was ever trying, it was because she had to take benefits from the woman she had wronged.  Poor unhappy Joan!  She died in great love and peace with me.”

Fortunately, this time she did not look me in the eyes.  Such magnanimity was beyond me.

“It is very sweet to know,” she went on dreamily, “that poor Luke came to me in his need.  He knew he could trust my love.  But he ought to have known me better than to believe I could send that message.  He ought to have known me better.”

“Yes,” I said, “he ought to have known you better.”

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SICKNESS

It was while I was still at Castle Clody that a message came to me one morning saying that some one desired to speak with me; and when I went out into the hall I found it was Nora Brady.  She had a little crimson shawl over her head, and as she lifted her eyes to me her beauty came to me like a new thing.  There was dry snow in the wind, and a few flakes of it showed on her dark curls, which lay ring on ring under the shawl.  Her face was round and soft as a child’s, and the innocence of her blue, black-lashed eyes as she lifted them to me was as unsullied as though she were three years old.  She had lost her pretty colour, but the gentleness which made her beauty appealing was, if possible, greater than of old.

“You wanted to speak to me, Nora,” I said.

I know I turned red and pale when her eyes met mine; for the moment all social differences and distinctions ceased to be.  I was going to marry the man Nora loved, the man I loathed.  I had a feeling that it was an intolerable wrong.

“If you please, Miss Bawn,” she said.

The servants were passing up and down the staircase.  I did not want any witnesses to our interview, nor any eavesdroppers.

“Come in here, Nora,” I said, opening the door of the morning-room which I usually had to myself for an hour or so after breakfast.  “And how is the child?  Better, I hope.”