From some ambiguous words dropped by Miles in the cottage, and during Minnie's stay with them, it will be remembered that Skaife was impressed with the idea that Tremenhere had, as a boy probably, loved Mary Burns, who had been a protegÉe of his mother's at the manor-house; and the curate also thought that the other was aware of her sad fate. For some time the silence was unbroken, then Miles, suddenly turning towards his companion, said, like one awakening from a dream, "Pardon me, Mr. Skaife, but I am an uncouth man, much alone, little in humanized society; my chief companions are stocks and stones, and the native inhabitants of wild nature; forgive me again, I had forgotten to thank you, which I do most sincerely, for your kindness to poor Mary Burns, and also to myself personally; few, indeed, would have had the courage to notice, and be thus publicly seen with one at so low a discount as I am in this neighbourhood."

"Believe me sincere, when I assure you, Mr. Tremenhere," rejoined the other, "that from all I have heard, and now seen, no one can more truly deplore your misfortunes than I do."

"Do you know them all?"

"I think, I believe I do," hesitated the curate; he feared uttering something painful.

"Do you know that for upwards of twenty-one years I was brought up at the manor-house, beloved by a father and mother, the best Heaven ever formed—oh! especially the latter; I can scarcely speak of her now." He paused, and seemed choking with emotion. "To be brief," he continued, after a pause, "in one year I lost all; she died first, my father soon followed her, and then, while my sorrow was still green, my cousin, Marmaduke Burton, put in a claim for the property, on the ground of my illegitimacy! I was stricken, I had not a word to offer, proof I had none to the contrary; my father's marriage had taken place, for marriage there was, at Gibraltar; my mother was Spanish, of not exalted parentage, I believe,—from thence sprung the great difficulty of proof. Only an obscure family to deal with, that ruffian Marmaduke gained all—the property was tied up until the event should be known; I had few wealthy friends—he, both friends and money. Most of my earlier days had passed in studies abroad; I came only at stated periods to my home—I was a stranger among my own countrymen;—he had secured himself allies (I will not call them friends, of these he could have none); he was assisted too, by a greater scamp than himself, a mean, cold-blooded villain of the name of Dalby. In my bewilderment, my horror, at her name—my pure, holy mother's name—being dragged forward for public scorn, I lost all nerve and power; then too, I was poor,—the result you know. Mr. Skaife, I am a wanderer—he, in my halls; but all is not lost yet. I may find my way to sunlight, even like the blind mole."

"And, Mr. Burton," asked the other, hesitatingly, "was he not a frequent visiter at the manor-house?"

"Why man, the reptile was there as my friend and brother; whenever I returned from my rambles, or school, in earlier days, 'twas 'Marmaduke' and 'Miles' with us from boyhood's youngest hours; he was with me soothing, when she, my mother, died—and there, too, when I put on my orphan state of master and lord of the manor-house. A week afterwards the long prepared claim was put in; the morning he left for that worthy purpose, he shook me by the hand, and said as usual, 'Good bye old fellow, we shall meet soon;' and we did—in court."

"And it was at the manor he knew Mary Burns?" asked Skaife, deeply affected.

"Ay, at the old place she had been as companion, almost child to my mother, from her childhood. Then when her old mother became paralyzed, and lost her school, Mary went to reside with her in that cottage; but it was comfortable then. My mother, and a little of her own industry in fancy work, kept them. Alas, poor Mary! I loved her dearly, as ever man loved a sister, she was so exemplary a girl under many trials."

"I fancied," said Skaife, "I scarcely know why, but I fancied there had been a warmer attachment." To his own surprise, he found himself conversing with this almost stranger as with an old friend, so certain is it, that kindred souls know no time, to limit their flight to meet their fellow spirits. Tremenhere coloured even through the bronze of his dark complexion; at the last words he was silent some moments, and then said hastily, but not haughtily: "Mary was a playfellow, as a sister to me—I never loved her," and he seemed desirous of changing the subject. This proud man appreciated the other's qualities and his goodness; with him he was no longer the cold, guarded person which circumstances had made him generally in his intercourse with all.

"It is a painful subject with you, I see," said Skaife, much embarrassed how to proceed; "but my mind is greatly relieved on one point—I feared you had loved this poor girl; that not having been the case, my duty is easier, for one it is, to consult with you what had best be done for her."

"Yes, poor girl! I had for a moment lost sight of her case in other thoughts—selfish ones, too—we are such mere automatons to our ruling passions. Poor girl! I hear that hopeful cousin of mine has ordered them to quit the cottage; so I presume they must—but where go? that's the question. I am so hampered myself by other cares, I scarcely know how to help them; could he not be prevailed upon to allow them to remain another six months—what do you think?"

Skaife's blood chilled within him; he felt like a disappointed man. Here was the person who had known Mary from childhood, almost a brother, so coolly wishing her to remain on the sufferance of Marmaduke Burton, as he knew him, and believed the other too, equally enlightened on several points.

"No," he coldly said, "I do not think she can, or ought to remain under circumstances; think of the dreadful crime she has almost committed, Mr. Tremenhere,—suicide!"

"True, but she has promised not to attempt that again. In our toiling passage to the attainment of any object, we must drink many a bitter draught. She must try and submit for a while, I fear, to a few annoyances: poor Mary—what can I do?"

"Pardon me, Mr. Tremenhere," answered Skaife in a cold but decided tone; "with my consent, as curate of this parish, she shall not remain. She might not commit suicide; but men are strange creatures, and the woman they cast from them to-day, they might kneel to, to-morrow, were she to appear indifferent; this girl shall never know the temptation such an act on his part might be."

Tremenhere stopped as if transfixed by a bolt of iron, and stared in speechless wonder in his companion's face. Skaife continued speaking, mistaking the dark cloud of demoniacal expression crossing that handsome face, for indignation towards himself for his free speech; for this he little cared.

"Mr. Burton's ardent, but heartless, pursuit of the girl till her ruin ensued, proves a deeper motive, I fear, than passion; the same revenge towards you, may urge——" He said no more.

"Stop!" cried Miles, in a voice of thunder, and he grasped the other's arm, and arrested his footsteps. His whole power of utterance above a whisper seemed to have been expended in that one word; for his voice became a mere breath like a dying man's, as he asked, while that strong, robust frame tottered beneath his heart's weight in his agony, "Do I understand you aright, that Mary Burns has been seduced, and by Marmaduke Burton?"

"Alas, yes! I thought you understood so from your words in that cottage." Poor Skaife was pale with emotion; the other had not changed, his blood stood still, only the muscles had given way beneath the blow. There was a long silence; Miles still grasped his arm till it fell from that clasp at last, powerless to hold it—they were near the stile leading into the lane where Mary's cottage was situated.

"Does Miss Dalzell know this?" inquired Miles, as if one thought, rushing with the many through his brain, found an outlet.

"The ruin, but not the man," answered Skaife.

"God bless her, then!" burst from the suffering man's lips, and with that blessing the blood flowed once more through his frame. It was as a gush of molten lead, forcing its way outwards, burning as it rushed; his face became dark and lurid, and his flashing eyes looked wildly forward.

"I have not words to thank you with, for all you have done," he cried in a hoarse, unnatural voice, grasping Skaife's hand. "We shall soon, very soon, meet again;" and with one bound he cleared the stile, and almost like thought stood before the terrified Mary Burns, who had sunk in a chair when they departed, almost fainting, from fear of the result of their conversation; and now she felt how well grounded that terror had been when Miles strode into the cottage. She knew his ungovernable passion when excited by injury or villainy in another—in her terror she rose before him: "Miles!" she almost screamed.

"Not Miles!" he cried, "but the spirit of his mother returned to condemn you; an angel who breathed on you from her own pure lip, who strove to instil her purity into your polluted soul—Devil's child!" and he grasped her trembling arm—he was pitiless, scarcely human, in his rage then—as he continued, "to hear such counsels, to breathe the atmosphere of such a presence, and turn to your hell again! Could not even her dying blessing, which fell united on both of us, cleanse you? Could you find no fitter object for your impure love than him, the man who has branded her memory with so foul a stain, who has driven her son, almost your brother, forth, a beggar, and nameless! If there's one drop of human blood in you, woman, shed it in tears for your baseness! Oh, heavens!" and he looked fixedly forward like a man in a trance, "give me power to call down on this creature the reward of her foul work!"

"Do not curse me, Miles," she shrieked, dropping on her knees and clasping them, "have mercy on me—have mercy on me!"

It was a fearful picture on which the curate at that moment looked unseen through the open door; they, in their agony, and the poor old mother totally unconscious of all, some happy thoughts evidently crossing her mind, for she was smiling, and endeavouring to rub her paralyzed hands together at the joyous dream. Skaife involuntarily drew back, and leaned against the door-post to keep away other witnesses, should the voices within attract notice in the adjoining cottages. Miles's hand was passed painfully over his face and brow—he had flung his hat aside.

"Have pity, Miles!" she cried, her eyes streaming with tears which nearly choked her, as she clasped her hands, and kneeling, looked up to where he stood, for he had shaken her off as she clung to him. "But if you knew what dreadful struggles of nearly maddening power ground my heart down to bitterness, and revenge," (she almost whispered the last word,) "before I committed this fearful sin against myself, you, and, far more than all, the memory of your sainted mother, you might find some excuse. You cannot forget how my presumptuous heart, forgetting all but her more than woman's kindness, dared to lose sight, from her gentleness, of the distance between us, and loved you. You cannot forget the day I dreamed you returned it, and boldly confessed mine; you were calm, dignified, manly, and generous, when you said you never could return it—that I had mistaken you, and you hoped myself, and when you drew me to your heart with a brother's love—Oh, may you never know such humiliation as I felt then, which turned to a blacker feeling afterwards, fostered by him; for when you, for my sake, absented yourself from home for months, you cannot know how this weak heart was worked upon by him. He had seen all, guessed all; and, unsuspecting his motives, I one day confessed the truth to him. From that hour he became the friend, the comforter; he alone spoke hope to me—a hope his every action discredited faith in. Then your mother died; events were drawing to a close; you returned, no thought of love in your heart; I repressed my mad affection for you, but I was weighed to earth by the effort. I was but a girl of eighteen in a villain's hands, when the downfall of all came; your father's death, your banishment——"

"And did not all these sad events, Mary," and his voice was low and trembling as he looked down upon the cowering woman, "soften your heart to pity, not revenge? Our affections are not our own; we are not masters of these but by many a hard struggle. I never could have loved you more than as a sister: it was not pride, Mary; we have none of that with those we love. I loved you very truly for your own sake, for the sake of our happy days of childhood together, and for my mother's sake." As the last words fell from him, the man, for a moment spirit-broken and agonized, sunk down on a chair, and, leaning his head on his arm across the table, wept like any woman over the ruin before him, and his memory of another. He had not one selfish thought; he was iron for himself,—for others, as a child at heart in love and gentleness. She rose, and, creeping to his side, took the hand which, clenched in its agony, rested on his knee, and, dropping on hers, she covered it with tears and kisses. "Forgive me, Miles," she sobbed, "for you know not all I endured of trial before I fell. He told me you had scoffed at my love—to him. It was not the work of a day or hour; it is nearly eight long years since you quitted this place; for more than four we have not met; for less than that space I have been the guilty creature I now am!"

Insensibly his hand unclenched and clasped her's; she continued sobbing between each scarcely-articulate word, "When, by every artifice man could employ, he led me to error; and, ever since, this most bitter repentance. 'Twas done under the promise of making me his wife, to show you that he appreciated my worth. And when he said you not only had repulsed my love, but scorned it——"

"He lied, Mary, he lied!" articulated the sorrowing man, looking up; "from me he never heard of our love; he must have divined it."

"God help me!" she uttered, kissing his clasping hand, "for I have suffered much; and it was my refusal (for years now) to continue in my error, which has made him persecute me so of late. I told him last time we met, that I loved you still, and ever should." These last words were scarcely breathed.

"Heaven help you, my poor girl!" cried Miles, looking at her as he placed a hand gently on her head; "for what can that love bring you?—Sorrow and disheartenment in every effort for existence; a log to hamper every step of your pathway to independence! Rise up, Mary," and he drew her on his heart; "come what may, my girl, these arms will shelter you still from the cold, heartless world. I am richer now, Mary, and to-morrow you and that poor old woman shall leave this place; and once away, oh, then!—--" He spoke the last words with a stern resolution.

"What, Miles?" and she clasped his clenched hand in her's, and gazed terrified in his flashing eyes.

"I'll return to my home abroad," he uttered, dropping them to conceal their speech, lest she should read aright.