"I am telling the truth in the presence of my dead mother and before Heaven," spoke Rosaline, lifting her hands in solemnity. "Do you doubt it, Blase Pellet?" "No--no; I can't, I don't," confessed Blase. "Moonlight's deceptive. And the wind was rushing along like mad between my eyes and the shaft." "I only meant to part them," wailed Rosaline. "And but that my poor father was unsteady in his gait that night, he need not have fallen. It is true I pushed him close to the brink, and there he tottered, in his unsteadiness, for the space of a second, and fell backwards: his lameness made him awkward at the best of times. A stronger man, sure of his feet, need not and would not have fallen in. But oh, Blase, that's no excuse for me! It does not lessen my guilt or my misery one iota. It was I who killed him: I, I!" "Has Mr. Raynor known this all along?" asked Blase, whose faculties for the moment were somewhat confused. Rosaline looked at him in surprise. "_Known it?_ Why, he was an actor in it. Ah, Blase, you have been holding Mr. Raynor guilty in your suspicious heart; he knows you have; and he has been keeping the secret out of compassion for me, bearing your ill thoughts in patient silence. All these four years he has been dreading that you would bring the accusation against him publicly. It has been in your heart; I know it has; to accuse him of my father's murder." "No, not really," said Blase, knitting his brows. "I should never have done it. I only wanted him to think I should." "And, see you not what it would have involved? I honestly believe that Frank Raynor would never have cleared himself at my expense, whatever charge you might have brought, but he feared that I should speak and clear him. As I should have done. And that confession would have gone well-nigh to kill my poor mother. For my sake Mr. Raynor has borne all this; borne with you; and done what lay in his power to ward off exposure." "He always favoured you," spoke Blase in crestfallen tones. "Not for the sake of _that_ has he done it," quickly returned Rosaline. "He takes his share of blame for that night's work; and _will_ take it, although blame does not attach to him. Had he gone straight home as I bade him, and not followed me to the mounds, it would not have happened, he says; so he reproaches himself. And, so far, that is true. It was a dreadful thing for both of us, Blase." "I wish it had been him instead of you," retorted Blase.