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"Forgive
me; put me out of this suspense."

But I dared not tell her yet; I felt not sure of her; and at the
doubt, and under the sense of impotence it brought with it, I
turned on the poor woman with something near to anger.

"Madam," said I, "we are speaking of two men: one of them insulted
you, and you ask me which. I will help you to the answer. With
one of these men you have spent all your hours: has the other
reproached you? To one you have been always kind; to the other, as
God sees me and judges between us two, I think not always: has his
love ever failed you? To-night one of these two men told the
other, in my hearing - the hearing of a hired stranger, - that you
were in love with him. Before I say one word, you shall answer
your own question: Which was it? Nay, madam, you shall answer me
another: If it has come to this dreadful end, whose fault is it?"

She stared at me like one dazzled. "Good God!" she said once, in a
kind of bursting exclamation; and then a second time in a whisper
to herself: "Great God! - In the name of mercy, Mackellar, what is
wrong?" she cried. "I am made up; I can hear all."

"You are not fit to hear," said I. "Whatever it was, you shall say
first it was your fault."

"Oh!" she cried, with a gesture of wringing her hands, "this man
will drive me mad! Can you not put me out of your thoughts?"

"I think not once of you," I cried. "I think of none but my dear
unhappy master."

"Ah!" she cried, with her hand to her heart, "is Henry dead?"

"Lower your voice," said I. "The other."

I saw her sway like something stricken by the wind; and I know not
whether in cowardice or misery, turned aside and looked upon the
floor. "These are dreadful tidings," said I at length, when her
silence began to put me in some fear; "and you and I behove to be
the more bold if the house is to be saved." Still she answered
nothing. "There is Miss Katharine, besides," I added: "unless we
bring this matter through, her inheritance is like to be of shame."

I do not know if it was the thought of her child or the naked word
shame, that gave her deliverance; at least, I had no sooner spoken
than a sound passed her lips, the like of it I never heard; it was
as though she had lain buried under a hill and sought to move that
burthen. And the next moment she had found a sort of voice.

"It was a fight," she whispered. "It was not - " and she paused
upon the word.

"It was a fair fight on my dear master's part," said I. "As for
the other, he was slain in the very act of a foul stroke."

"Not now!" she cried.

"Madam," said I, "hatred of that man glows in my bosom like a
burning fire; ay, even now he is dead. God knows, I would have
stopped the fighting, had I dared. It is my shame I did not. But
when I saw him fall, if I could have spared one thought from
pitying of my master, it had been to exult in that deliverance."

I do not know if she marked; but her next words were, "My lord?"

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