Fate, it seemed, had ordered a final fleeting happiness for the lonely young wife before her sun was to set in sorrow. For a season the glow of Daniel’s letter clung to her, warmed her heart, and lighted her spirit. Nor did she hide the news from all. Daniel’s parents heard much of the letter, as he directed, and Minnie trusted Mr Beer and his wife with the news also. But nobody else heard it. Then, as summer approached and she already began to count the days until another letter might reach her, a crashing grief fell upon the woman, and all her future was changed. Hope perished; life henceforth stretched forward into the dreary future without one ray of light to break its darkness.

For a moment in her shattering sorrow even the truth itself seemed no longer worth discovery. Nothing mattered any more, for the end had come. Even while she was reading his letter, so full of life and hope, the hand that wrote it was clay again; and, under circumstances the most awful, his little vessel and all thereon had perished.

When Titus Sim kept his appointment and brought himself to Hangman’s Hut that Minnie might sew a yellow button upon his gaiter, she had some ado to hide her splendid thoughts while she worked for him. From the first she had studiously concealed the truth from Titus, nor did she speak a word of it now. His presence always made her heart cold and hard; for as she thought of the past, his action grew more and more clear to her. He had laid a deadly trap for Daniel, and Daniel, trusting him better than anybody in the world, had fallen headlong into it. Whether Sim was actually present at the death of Thorpe Minnie still knew not; but that he was familiar with the circumstances, and that he had on the night of the murder fetched Daniel’s gun and placed it ready to be found on the following morning, she felt assured. His purpose was to gain herself. But what to do at this juncture she did not know. She dared not summon Daniel home as yet, and she dared not impart her discoveries to any other. Then happened circumstances that made all vain and turned revenge into a thing too mean and shallow to pursue. After the announcement of her husband’s death the perspective and significance of life were altered. For long days she moved listlessly from her bed back to her bed again. Sleep only had power to comfort her, while yet the overwhelming tragic truth tortured each waking hour. Sleep nightly she welcomed as she would have welcomed death.

In this strange fashion came the fatal news to her.

Sim was accustomed to bring books and newspapers upon the occasion of his visits, and in a daily journal, at the time of that awful event, telegrams appeared of the volcanic catastrophe that had burst upon the West Indies, had shaken St Vincent to its heights, and overwhelmed much of the unfortunate island of Martinique. Chance ordered the intelligence upon the day that Sim had fixed for his formal proposal, and her eyes were actually fixed upon the Western Morning News, where it lay spread over her table, at the moment that the man was asking her to marry him.

“I can’t hold it in no more,” he said. “You know right well what I mean. I’ve been patient too—the Lord knows how patient. Oh, woman, don’t torment me any longer. For God’s sake say you’ll marry me. My life’s one cruel stretch on the rack as it is. All I’ve done to get you you’ll never know. You’ve been the one thought and hope and prayer and longing of my life ever since I first set eyes on you, and now—now there’s nought between us—now—Minnie! Good God—what’s the matter—what have I done?”

He broke off and leapt to his feet, for she had fallen back in her chair and an expression of great terror and horror had come into her face. She had only heard his last words. The woman did not faint; but for the moment she was powerless to speak. Her emotion had robbed her cheek of blood and made her dizzy. In response to his cry she pointed to the sheet before her. He glanced at the long Reuter telegram, and then noted the brief paragraph upon which she kept her finger:—

“What is this to you or to me? What do you know? Tell me if I can do anything,” cried Titus Sim.

“‘Every soul—every soul,’” she said, quoting in a strange voice under her breath. “‘Every soul,’ but it means ‘everybody.’ The souls have gone back where there’s no hopes nor fears nor sorrows. But his body—his dear body—all—all—perished. I can’t read no more. Does it say all?”

“That awful thing in Martinique. Yes, they be full of it at the house, and full of thanksgivings that it wasn’t Tobago that was smitten. But you, Minnie—what is this to you?”

“Death,” she said. “His death; and his death be mine—the death of all that’s best in me—the death of all I kept alive for him.”

“For—for—you don’t mean your husband? Not Daniel Sweetland?”

“He was on board her. ’Twas to her he went and in her he sailed. I only heard it a thought more than a month agone. Heard it under his own hand. He wrote me a letter. And now—”

“There might be another ship of that name. But how much this means! And you could hide it all from me! And I thought—”

“You thought he was in Wall Shaft Gully. And now he lies in a bigger grave than that—my Dan—driven away to die. May God remember the man who ruined my husband!”

For once Sim was shaken from his power of ready speech; for once his tongue seemed tied. The tremendous nature of this event made him powerless. Yet at the bottom of his bewildered mind lurked joy. The thing he had toiled to bring about appeared at last accomplished without further possibility of failure. Doubt no longer existed. Sweetland was now dead indeed. He concealed his thanksgiving and began to mourn. No more of love he spake, but strove to find consolation for her in religious reflections. Dry-eyed she stared from him to the newspaper, from the newspaper back to him. Then she bade him leave her, and he went, but stopped at the publichouse hard by and told his tremendous news to Mr and Mrs Beer. They, who knew the secret of Daniel’s disappearance, were stricken with profound sorrow, and scarcely had Sim proclaimed the truth before Jane Beer hurried bare-headed from the house and ran to her friend.

“Poor young woman!” groaned Johnny in genuine grief, “what a world of up and downs and hopes and fears she have suffered, to be sure! To think as one pair of girl’s shoulders be called upon to carry such a burden. There’s nought to be done. Only time can help her; an’ maybe you.”

“To think,” said Sim, “and I was that moment putting marriage before her! Another moment and she must have told me she was a wife; and then it caught her eye—staring from the printed page—that she was a widow!”

“She told us the secret and I made a joyous rhyme about it; but what’s rhymes to her now? Yet I’ll do one, and this day I’ll do it, for many’s the poor broken heart as have sucked comfort from a well-turned verse—else why do we have hymns? Well, it will come back to you, Titus. For my part I could wish as Daniel had died to home where first we thought he did. A sea death be so open an’ gashly. For my part I’d sooner have gone down Vitifer mine shaft and know my bones would bide in the land that bred ’em.”

“Well, the mystery be all out now. No doubt he visited her that night he gave the policemen the slip. ’Twas hard I should never know the secret, for I’m sure Dan would have told me afore all the world.”

“She’s only got his memory now, poor lamb; an’ that won’t keep her warm of a winter night. ’Twas ordained you should have her, no doubt. But you mustn’t ax her till the tears be dried. She’ll weep a lot. Turn and twist as you may, death will grab you some day. The appointed time comes round as sure as the sun rises. Pig or man, each has his span. There’s verses rising up in me, Titus, so I won’t keep you. What was the name of the poor hero’s ship? D’you call it to mind?”

“The Peabody,” answered Sim; then he departed with strange thoughts for company.

In truth Titus had much ado to marshal his ideas. He stood exactly where he believed that he had stood from the time of Daniel’s disappearance; but the fact that Sweetland was only now removed from his path by death startled him not a little. He hardly realised his fortune. In his mind was a dark cloud, for that Minnie should so carefully have kept her secret from him meant mischief. She had not trusted him with the truth. There was a reason for that, and the reason promised to be the reverse of pleasant. Sim had been deceived by Minnie’s attitude. Without attempt to blind his eyes, her demeanour had led him to suppose that she at least was content in his society, that she trusted him, that she bore to him the regard due to her husband’s first and favourite companion. But she had deliberately chosen to keep him in ignorance, not only of Daniel’s safety, but also concerning his actual existence; and this reserve caused Sim a great deal of painful surprise. Surely it indicated that Daniel’s widow did not trust him; and for that distrust a reason must exist.

Titus perceived that much depended upon his future attitude. To win her absolute confidence would now be necessary before any further talk of love. He ransacked his sleepless mind that night, and ere morning saw the way clear. His good faith must be made apparent; it must shine above any shadow of suspicion. Minnie should learn that her husband’s honour and fair name were as much to Titus Sim as to herself. How to effect this result was his problem, and the footman believed that he could solve it. For Sim was perfectly familiar with the truth concerning Adam Thorpe’s end; and no man knew better than did he that Daniel had no part in the crime. The secret murderer was not hidden from Titus, nor was the hand that placed Sweetland’s gun where he had found it.

Everything conspired to his purpose. He calculated that in a month’s time he would be able to clear Sweetland’s name before the world. Then his own reward seemed clear. Minnie, once convinced that her vague fears and suspicions did him wrong, could hardly deny him what he begged. Into his fixed and immovable resolution to make her his own he poured all the strength of a tremendous will. He had not come so far upon the journey to be repulsed. He had not moved by dark ways and committed worse than crimes for nothing. From a mental condition of anger and uneasiness, his devious soul plotted itself back into content and calm. The end was assured and the means to play his final strokes now lay clear before the man’s intelligence. To establish absolute confidence in himself as Sweetland’s friend—true even beyond death—was now his purpose; and the thing he planned to do, if brought to a successful issue, could hardly fail to show him in a noble light and convince the sceptic, if any such existed beside Minnie, that his aims were pure and his faith above all suspicion.

A week later, when she had told her secret, and her little world mourned in its wonder, and yet also triumphed at the ingenuity of the native who would never return again, Titus Sim visited Minnie with offers to assist her in any step she might now be contemplating. But she did not avail herself of the suggestion.

“I’m going back to my aunt come presently,” she said. “I can’t bide here no more now. After Michaelmas I give it up an’ return to Moreton.”

Her face was very pale against her black dress, and darkness and sorrow haunted her beautiful eyes; but no living soul had seen her deepest grief. That was hidden from all. Her voice never shook when she spoke of Daniel to Titus Sim, for instinct told her the man, despite his protestations, did not share her bereavement. Only with Daniel’s mother, or in the company of Jane Beer, did she reveal a glimpse of her breaking heart.

“Command me, if I can serve you in any possible manner,” he said. “And don’t think I’m forgetting this great sorrow because ’tis not always upon my tongue. Far from it; Daniel is never out of my thoughts. He’s beyond the reach of aught but prayers; but his honour and good name are the legacies he left behind, and ’tis for us to treasure them and make ’em shine out like the sun from behind this cloud that darkens them. I know only too well you don’t believe me. It’s been the greatest grief in a sad life—the greatest but Daniel’s death—that you kept his secret from me and did not let me know that he was still alive. I’ve had nought but sleepless nights thinking of it. And why for you don’t trust me I can’t guess, and why you hid the welfare of my greatest friend from me I shall never know; but this I know: you had no just reason and not by word or deed, or thought or dream have I ever done him wrong. Be that as it may. I’ll say nothing about it and I’ll ask you for no explanation, for ’tisn’t a time to wrangle which of us—man or woman—friend or wife—loved him best. I’ll not prate; I’ll do. I believe even now that ’twill be my blessed lot to clear his memory afore the world. You gaze at me as if you thought that ’twould be no joy to me to do it—see how I read what’s in your eyes! But I swear afore the Throne of Heaven that I’d sooner clear his name and sweeten his memory than be a prince in the land, or the ruler of cities.”

“If you could do it, why have you waited until now?” she asked coldly.

“Because Providence willed that I should wait. And even now I’m only hopeful, not positive. I should have striven to do all and bring you the glad news when I’d got it proved beyond the doubt of the world; but now Heaven has hit upon a better way. Yes, ‘Heaven’s’ the word, for in righting Daniel in the world’s eyes, I pray God will right me in yours, Minnie Sweetland.”

He paused, but she only surveyed him silently, and he spoke again.

“Thus it stands. The poor soul commonly called ‘Drunkard’ Parkinson, is now at his last gasp, or near it. He cannot live more than a month; doctor has told him so. But, as I have always feared, that man has evil secrets. What they are I only guess, but my guess during the last few days has developed into certainty. You know young Prowse lives in the cottage that adjoins Rix Parkinson’s? Two days ago he came to tell me that poor Rix wanted to see me, and to know how soon I could call upon him. I went at once, and then he confessed that there is much upon his conscience. I begged him to see Parson West, whose deep wisdom and sympathy and knowledge of Heaven are denied to no sinner; but he refused. ‘Not him, nor any other man,’ he said. ‘’Tis a woman I want to see—the wife of that chap, Dan Sweetland, as runned away after that they’d taken him for murder.’ He did not know that Dan was dead, and I did not tell him, for the fact might have changed his determination. I promised to bring you to him, and I prevailed with him that he would let me be present also. He is desirous to tell you something, and since the confession must have a witness to make it of any worth, I, too, shall hear it, that it may be supported in the world after Parkinson dies. For he is on the way to die, and he specially told me that the thing he meant to tell you must not be made public until his death. What it is I can guess, as I have said; and doubtless you can, too.”

“He killed Adam Thorpe.”

“I believe so with all my soul. They were old enemies, and three years ago Parkinson went to gaol for three months after assaulting Thorpe. Either he did it, or he knows right well who did. And he knows that the man who did it was not our poor Daniel.”

“I will come when he pleases,” said Minnie. “I hope your opinion may be the right one, Mr Sim.”

“And I hope that you will think kinder of me when, through my ceaseless toil and labour, I have cleared my friend’s memory.”

He left her then without waiting for an answer, and a week later a day was fixed.

It happened that Minnie was in Moretonhampstead upon the occasion of making this final appointment to visit the sick man, and as she returned to the Moor, she met young Samuel Prowse—well known to her as an old friend of Daniel. She passed him with a nod of recognition; then she changed her mind; a thought suddenly struck her, and she called the youth to her side.