Before Elsie Wray quitted the Wayside Inn, however, she had a word to say to the young barmaid who had brought her the message that the groom from Stourton Grange wished to speak to her.

She beckoned this girl to her, who was officiating at the bar, and whispered a few words to her in the passage outside the room.

“Alice,” she said, “I am going out, but don’t tell father. Say, if he asks after me, that I have gone to bed with a bad headache. Do you understand?”

The barmaid nodded; she quite understood that her mistress was going out to meet the young squire from Stourton Grange. This affair was known and had been much commented on by the small circle round the inn-keeper’s family. Some had shaken their heads over it, and wished it might end well. Others took a more charitable view. But Alice, the barmaid, had seen the look in Elsie’s face when she had given her message to Jack Reid the groom, and her expression did not bode well.

“You won’t be late, mistress?” whispered the girl.

“No,” answered Elsie, in a low, slow tone, and she clutched the revolver she held beneath her cloak yet harder as she spoke. “I will go out by the back door,” she added.

“I’ll watch till you come back,” said Alice, and Elsie nodded and then glided away into the darkness, and the barmaid looked after her for a moment, but was quickly recalled to her duties by her master’s voice.

Elsie having quitted the house and closed the door softly behind her, passed down through the kitchen garden, and speedily found herself on the high road.

She had a long walk—at least two miles and a half—before she could reach the high land that lies above Fern Dene. Stourton Grange stands about a mile to the west of Fern Dene, and once or twice in the early days of their love, Elsie had met young Henderson in the Dene. But this was before Henderson had discovered that this shady and romantic spot was the favorite walk and resort of pretty May Churchill. After this there were no more meetings in the Dene with his lowly-born sweetheart. Henderson chose another direction, and ran no risks of encountering May Churchill while walking with Elsie Wray.

Now swiftly and silently beneath the drifting clouds the forsaken woman went on to what Henderson meant to be her last tryst with him. She never looked up nor around. She knew the way well, and every feeling of her heart was concentrated on one object.

“He shall die unless he does me justice,” was the thought that entirely possessed her. She was desperate, and in her desperation she was capable of anything.

In the meanwhile Tom Henderson was feeling anything but comfortable. The groom, Jack Reid, had returned and had given Elsie’s message to his young master, and added what he called a hint of his own.

“She looked mortal bad,” he said, significantly.

Tom Henderson whistled, but he by no means liked the prospect before him. He drank more wine at dinner than was his wont, and his mother again and again looked at him anxiously. She did not like his restless movements, his somewhat disjointed words. At last he rose and said he would go out for a smoke and a stroll.

“Don’t be late, my dear,” answered his mother.

“No,” said Tom, and then she watched him walk down the avenue till the red tip of his cigar disappeared in the darkness.

He went on slowly enough. He knew he was going to meet an angry, disappointed woman, and he knew he had done Elsie the worst wrong a man can do, yet he never swerved from his purpose. But he wished it was over; he was essentially selfish, and he was thinking of his own feelings of discomfort and not of the poor girl’s, as he went on through the gusty night.

Presently he came to the ridge of high land above Fern Dene. This is rather a remarkable piece of ground; the dip of the hill from it down to the Dene being exceedingly steep, even precipitous. This descent is thickly studded with trees, brambles, and undergrowth. On the ridge there is a narrow walk, with the fall of the hill on one side and stretching fields on the other.

Along this walk Henderson went, still slowly, and as he did so the moon suddenly broke forth from the drifting clouds, and showed him dark and distinct the figure of a woman on the pathway before him.

It was Elsie Wray wrapped in a long cloak, and standing on the very verge of the descent below, gazing down into its gloomy depths. Henderson could see her face in the moonlight; could see the sharply cut profile and the black brows, for the hood of her cloak had fallen back, and her head was uncovered. She looked a weird and tragic figure in this lonely spot, and for a moment Henderson hesitated to approach her. Then he pulled himself together.

“It must be done,” he told his sinking heart, and he therefore began to walk more quickly forward, and at the sound of his footsteps Elsie turned her face away from the ravine and looked around.

But she made no forward movement to meet him. She stood there awaiting his approach, silent, motionless, and something in her attitude made Henderson yet more uneasy.

At last he neared her.

“Well, Elsie,” he said, holding out his hand, “I’m afraid you’ve had a long walk.”

She did not answer, nor did she attempt to take his proffered hand.

“I asked you to come here, Elsie,” continued Henderson, somewhat hurriedly and nervously, “because I want to have a good talk with you. I want in fact to make some arrangements, some permanent arrangement. You see all that talk about our marriage is nonsense. I’ve others to consider, my mother to consider, and a marriage between us would never do, that’s a fact.”

“When did you first learn this fact?” asked Elsie, bitterly.

“Well, you see, I was only a lad when I first knew you, Elsie, and lads do and say a lot of foolish things. But I want to make it all square and act handsomely, as I told you in my letter, if you will only be a sensible girl.”

“And how much do you propose to buy my silence for?” said Elsie, yet more bitterly.

“Oh, well, it’s no use speaking in that tone. I mean to do what I say, and settle enough on you to make you comfortable for life. Why not emigrate, and you could marry some fellow out there with the money I give you? I thought of even as much as two thousand pounds.”

“Not for ten hundred thousand pounds!” cried Elsie, raising her voice in passionate accents. “Not for all the money that was ever coined, Tom Henderson!” she went on. “What do you take me for? Do you think I would sell my rights, the rights of my unborn child? Never! You must marry me, or you will rue the day.”

“I can not marry you,” answered Henderson, doggedly. “Don’t you see it’s impossible for a fellow in my position to do so? How can I take a wife from a public house? You should look at things more sensibly, Elsie!”

“You should have thought of all this before—before it was too late. Now it is. If not for my sake, for the sake of the child—”

“Oh, bother the child!” muttered Henderson, brutally.

The face of the woman he addressed turned absolutely livid. Her eyes dazed, her breath came short, and her hand convulsively grasped the revolver hidden beneath her cloak.

“It shall not be the child of shame,” she cried in a low fierce tone. “If you do not promise to do me justice, Tom Henderson, as sure as there is a God above us I will shoot you dead first, and then myself.”

She lifted the revolver as she spoke, and Henderson saw the gleam of steel in the moonlight, and his face grew pale.

“Will you promise?” repeated Elsie, sternly, and her blazing eyes never left the changing face of the man standing before her. Henderson faltered. He saw she was in earnest, and he changed his manner.

“Do not be foolish, Elsie,” he said.

“It is not folly,” she answered in a determined voice. “Long have I borne with you; borne with your neglect, your insults; but now I have made up my mind. Either you marry me, or we both shall die.”

“Think for a moment—”

“I will think no more; I have nearly gone mad with thinking; now I shall act. Tom Henderson, will you marry me?”

“Oh, well, if you put it in that way I suppose I must.”

Elsie’s raised hand, with which she had been pointing the revolver at Henderson’s throat, fell at these words, and a sigh of relief escaped her lips.

“Let it be so then,” she said, in a strange, weary tone. The strain had been so great; the struggle was over. Her arm dropped; her head fell on her breast. But in a moment—in this moment of weakness—the coward before her sprang upon her, grasping her arm, and wrenched the revolver from her grasp.

He did it so quickly that Elsie had not time to resist, nor to realize his action. He held the revolver in the air; he gave a brutal laugh of triumph.

“Now,” he cried, “will you shoot me now? So you were going to force me to marry you, were you, by your silly threats? But I won’t, there; do you hear, I won’t!”

He almost shouted the last words, and they fell on the ears of a woman stunned with misery.

“What!” she gasped forth. “What!”

“I’m not going to be bullied into doing anything I don’t mean to do by your tragedy airs,” continued Henderson, his passions rising as he spoke. “I’ve made you a fair offer; most of women would consider it a handsome offer, but you’re a fool.”

She looked in his face with a stony look of despair.

“Do you mean to go back from what you promised?” she said.

“I never promised! Once for all, Elsie, make the best of the situation; take my money, and go away.”

“Coward!”

She hissed out this word with bitter emphasis. She stood there facing him pale to the very lips. Henderson held the revolver high in his strong hand, and she knew she could not reach it. He had robbed her of her weapon, but he had not conquered her soul.

“You have lied then,” she said, with concentrated scorn, “as you have done a thousand times. I might have known! But for all that you shall not marry Miss Churchill. I will go to her to-morrow, and tell her the whole story; tell her what you are, and how you have treated me, and I will tell my father.”

“You will do this?” cried Henderson, in sudden fury. “You never shall!”

“I will do it,” repeated Elsie, doggedly.

“I swear you shall not live to do it!”

“I will!” again said Elsie.

“Then I’ll shoot you dead before you do it!” cried Henderson, fiercely, pointing the revolver at Elsie as he spoke.

The woman did not flinch as the man had done. Perhaps she felt that all her life was ended that was worth living for. At all events she did not swerve.

“Swear that you will not go near Miss Churchill; that you will never tell your father anything of what has been between us,” continued Henderson, still pointing the revolver at Elsie’s head, “or by the heavens above us I’ll shoot you!”

“I will tell my father to-night; I will see Miss Churchill to-morrow.”

These were almost the unhappy woman’s last words. Henderson, maddened by anger, by the wine he had drunk, and by her obstinacy, with a savage oath pulled the trigger of the weapon he held, and the next moment Elsie, with a cry, made a little spring forward, and a moment later fell fatally wounded at his feet.

Then Henderson began to realize what he had done. He laid the revolver on the grass; he knelt down at Elsie’s side.

“Elsie, you are not any worse, are you?” he said; “I only meant to frighten you, I only—”

As he was speaking the moon, which had hitherto been partly obscured and hidden by the drifting clouds, suddenly shone out in its full radiancy. It shone on the face of a woman struggling in her death throes; on a ghastly wound which had torn open one side of her shapely throat, and from which a stream of blood was pouring fast.

Henderson, horror-stricken, drew out his handkerchief and tried to stanch this, but with a dying effort Elsie pushed his hand aside. She opened her eyes; she struggled for breath.

“Tom Henderson,” she gasped out, for each breath was a gasp, “God will bring you to account for this—I curse you with my dying breath.”

After this she spoke no more. Henderson, appalled by his own deed, felt powerless. He knelt there and watched the last struggles of the woman he had shot. He knelt there when it was all over, and when the loving, passionate heart that he had broken had ceased to beat. Did some dim memories rise before him as he did so? Did he think of Elsie as the bright young girl he once had loved? If so, he uttered no word. He waited till the last quiver was still, the last moan hushed, and then pale, trembling in every limb, he rose.

Elsie Wray was dead, and he had killed her! The night breeze seemed to whisper this, as they rustled in the ravine below; strange voices muttered it in his ears. Good God! And she had cursed him as she died!

Henderson shuddered as he remembered this. Again he glanced tremblingly at the dead woman’s face. The flickering shadows of the moonlight still played on it; the half-open eyes were full of scorn.

But something must be done, yes, something must be done, Henderson told himself after a brief interval of horror. He must try to hide this deed that he had committed, this murder that his hand had wrought. Murder! The horrid word seemed to ring in his ears; it seemed written in flames before his eyes. Suddenly it all grew dark; the moon had hidden her light, and in the gloom Henderson stood alone with his dead.

Then it flashed across his brain that he had shot Elsie with the weapon that she had brought. This seemed to offer a hope of deliverance to his mind. She would be supposed to have shot herself. Who was there to tell? Henderson listened a few moments with bated breath. There was not a rustle, but the trees below stirred with the night wind; not a sound, and it was now dark, very dark.

Summoning all his courage, he once more approached the dead woman’s body. He meant to throw it down the ravine, where chance might hide it. With a sickening feeling of loathing he stooped and raised it in his arms. Bah? As he did so something still warm ran over his hand. He dropped the body with a suppressed cry; it was Elsie’s blood, and when he remembered this, it added new horror to his soul.

But it must be done. With a great effort he once more bent down. He pulled it along this time—this lifeless thing he feared to touch. He dragged it to the edge of the ravine; he rolled it over the sharp descent. He heard it fall, then stop. He thought it had found a resting place. But suddenly the crash of a branch giving way fell on his ears. Again came a ghastly fall, then another, then a third, and then all was still.

Henderson stood listening, spellbound with fear and horror. Great drops of moisture fell from his forehead, his very hair seemed to bristle with affright. Then after a time of unbroken silence, he slightly recovered himself. He sought for, and found, the revolver he had laid on the grass. This he flung down the ravine after the dead woman, and having done this he turned and fled from the spot with the black curse of murder on his soul.