"Michael Fahey! Michael Fahey!" cried Mrs. Davenport, slowly. "Am I awake and sane?"

"Both," answered he, gently. "You are awake and sane, and I am Fahey, and alive. Nothing can be more incredible; but it is as I say, Mrs. Davenport. You will not betray me? You will not be unmerciful to me? Remember, I never meant to do you harm."

She shrank back from him. Did this man, whose hands were reddened with her husband's blood, dare to plead to her for mercy. "Betray you! What do you mean? Do you call it betraying you to give you into the hands of justice? You will gain nothing by threats. I am not afraid of you; and I am not defenceless, even though I am alone." She moved further off, and pressed the revolver in her hand.

He seemed dejected rather than alarmed. "What good can it do you? When I disappeared years ago, it was for the good of your husband----" He held out his hands appealingly to her.

Her tone and attitude were firm, as she interrupted him. "You disappeared years ago for the good of my husband, and reappear for his death--for his murder! I can have no more words with you. I shall certainly not shield you from the consequences of your crime."

"If you only knew me as well as you might--if you could only understand how I felt that day I was hunted like a beast, you could not believe I would willingly do anything to annoy, much less to harm you.... Mrs. Davenport," he burst out, vehemently, "I would have died then for you: I will die now if you bid me--die for that second rose."

She looked at him with a glance of loathing, and gathered herself together as though she felt contaminated by contact with the air he breathed.

"Go away at once. Your audacity is loathsome. Has it come to this with me, that I must bandy words with such a monster?"

"Mrs. Davenport," said he, in a tone of expostulation, "I am very far from saying I am blameless. I have committed crimes for which the punishment would be great, but I was not alone in my crimes. I did not invent them."

"And who invented the atrocious crime of last February? Who was in our house in Dulwich that night?"

"I read the case, and saw that Mr. Thomas Blake was at your house on that night."

"And where were you?"

"In Brussels. Good heavens!--you cannot imagine I had anything to do with that awful night! The idea is too monstrous to resent--to think of for a moment. I swear to you I was in Brussels at the time, and that I never did, or thought of doing, any injury to your husband. I loved him well; but I loved some one else better---better than all the world besides."

He did not look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the sea.

She moved as if to go.

He heard the motion, and went to her and stood between her and the house.

"I will not say another word about myself; but hear me out. If I have nothing to hope for, let me go away in the belief I am not unjustly suspected by you of hurting your husband. I never cared much for my life. Let me feel that when I die I shall not be worse in your eyes than I deserve to be. Mrs. Davenport, hear me."

He entreated her with his voice, with his eyes, with his bent body, with his outstretched hands.

Without speaking, she gave him to understand he might go on.

"I knew Mr. Davenport years before I saw you. I had business connections with him which would not bear the light. You must have heard or guessed something of what we have been busy about?"

She made no sign--said nothing.

"I was a steel engraver. Now and then he wanted plates done. I did the plates for him."

"What kind of plates?"

She betrayed no emotion of any kind. Her voice was as calm as though she was asking an ordinary question.

"You had better not know. It would do you no good to know. But do you believe me that I was hundreds of miles away from London that awful night?"

"And what brought you back to this place now?"

"I came back--because you are free!"

She made a gesture of impatience and dissent.

"You do not mean to say you will continue your suspicion in the face of my denial, in the face of my horror at the mere thought?"

"But why should I take your unsupported word? If you are innocent, why were you so horrified at the mere thought of inquiry?"

"But, good heavens! Mrs. Davenport, you did not for a moment imagine I was afraid of inquiry into anything which occurred in February? I thought the inquiry to which you referred had reference to some old transactions between me and Mr. Davenport?"

"What were these transactions?"

"I beg of you not to ask. What good can it do to go into matters so far back? You would find my answers of no advantage to you."

"Were they of a business character?"

"Purely of a business character, I assure you."

"And they would not bear the light?"

"Not with advantage to me."

"Or to my husband?"

"Or with advantage to your late husband."

"And to you, and to you alone the secret of these transactions is now known?"

"To me, and to me alone."

She paused in thought. She held up her hand to bespeak his silence. After a few moments' pause, she said:

"In the course of these transactions injury was done to some one? Was that not so?"

"You are asking too much. Neither your happiness nor your fortune could be served by my answering your questions. I refuse to answer."

With a gesture, she declined to be satisfied with this treatment.

"I have no fortune and no happiness. Once you told me you would do anything I requested of you if I gave you a rose. There are no roses now. In all likelihood there will be no more roses while I live----"

"While you live!"

"Let me go on. I have not much to say. You could not prize a rose for its intrinsic value?"

"No; but for two other considerations--for the fact that it had once been yours, and for what the gift of it from you to me might signify."

"If I gave you a rose now it could signify nothing--mind, absolutely nothing. But if the mere fact that it belonged to me would make anything valuable in your eyes, I will give you my glove, or my bracelet, or this for your secret;" and she drew from her pocket the revolver and pointed it at him.

He started towards her at the sight of the weapon, crying angrily:

"What do you mean by carrying that? Great heavens, it cannot be that you came out here with the intention of committing suicide!"

He looked at her in horror.

"No," she answered quietly--"but with the intention of defending myself against you. I thought if I should meet you, and you had murdered my husband, and knew from me I had guessed it, that I might need this. But I have no evidence you did murder him, and I see no sign of guilt in you. Will you take it, or the bracelet, or the glove, or all three, and tell me about those transactions in which my husband was engaged with you?"

"It is not enough for my secret," he said.

"What more do you want? My purse?"

She put those questions in a placid tone, and showed no impatience or scorn.

"No," he said, shaking with conflicting passions, "I do not want your purse. If I wanted money, I could have had as much as any man could care for out of your husband's purse. I have enough for myself. You cured me of the love of money, and put another love in its place. Give me your hand, or fire."

She raised her hand quickly, and flung the revolver from her over the cliff. It fell on the Black Rock beneath. The fall was followed by a long silence on both sides.

"I make one last appeal to you," she cried in soft, supplicating tones--"one last appeal. I do not purpose keeping a penny of the money--not one farthing. Some papers which fell accidentally into my hands after my husband's death convinced me he came by his money dishonestly. He himself told me you had been of great service to him, and that your actions would not bear the light. Give me, for pity's sake, a chance of restoring this money to those who ought to have it. I did think of dying and shielding his memory, for if I died no one could be surprised at my leaving the wretched money to charities. But it would be better still to give what remains of the money to the rightful owners. Will you tell me who they are?"

She caught his hand in hers and drew it towards her.

He seized hers eagerly, and held it.

"I will for this," he whispered. "We can give all his money back if you will."

She snatched her hand away.

"That is impossible, sir. I have told you so finally."

She essayed to pass by him once more.

"Only a minute. I cannot live openly in this country; I must go abroad. I have been concealed close to this place in the hope of meeting you. I may never see you again. Do not go for a minute. Your husband was always good and loyal to me, and I was always loyal to him. He dealt honourably with me in money matters. It was necessary for us to have a hiding-place near this, and I found it. Just before I disappeared he made up his mind to abandon business of all kinds. He had enough of money, and so had I--though of course he was a rich man compared with me. Well, as you know, I disappeared. I went, no matter where. I disappeared because I had no longer any business here, and because of another reason to which I will not again refer. That is all I have to say, except that I left documents which would be intelligible to your husband--they contained the clue to our hiding-place should I die or your husband want it--in Mr. John O'Hanlon's hands for Mr. Davenport and you. Nothing, I suppose, ever reached you about them?"

"No."

"That, then, is all I have to say."

"You will tell me no more? Give me no key?"

"Mr. Davenport left you his money. Why should I help you to get rid of it? Good-bye."

He turned eastward, went along the cliff, and she moved off slowly in the direction of Kilcash House.