He picked up the little bunch. Poor, bruised, broken flowers, crushed and withered like his hopes; pure flowers, white as Mirelle. They had rested all day in her bosom. He put them to his lips, and a great trembling like an ague attack came over him. If he had asked her to give him the flowers, would she have given them to him? Yes, but with a needle in them to pierce his hand. She had given him herself, but with herself his death-wound. Now, all at once, he remembered where the bullets were—on a shelf in a sort of recess or cupboard at the foot of the bed. He went to the place and found them. He took one, dropped it down the barrel, and rammed it home. ’God forgive me,’ he said, ’but there is no help for it. So alone can I undo the wrong I have done; so alone restore to Mirelle the liberty and the happiness of which I have defrauded her.’ He leaned his head on the barrel; the steel was cold to his hot and heavy brow. He rested it there some moments, thinking. Then he raised it, and the round red ring marked his forehead. The gnawing pain was not there; there was trouble there, but the pain was in his heart, Then he lowered the butt end of the musket on the floor, and, leaning forward, placed the mouth of the barrel against his heart, and slid his hand down it towards the trigger. A sense of alleviation of pain, a foretaste of rest, came to him, from the pressure of the gun on his heart. ’God pardon me, it cannot be otherwise! May He be with her and bless her! Mirelle! Mirelle!’ He touched the trigger. At that moment the door flew open. ’Maister! dear maister!’ With the start, the gun was discharged, but not through his heart; the bullet whizzed past his ear, and penetrated the roof. Then ensued silence for a minute. Herring was leaning back, hardly knowing what had happened, and whether he were alive or dead. The smoke filled the little room. As it cleared away, his eyes saw Joyce. ’Maister! sure you have frighted of me dreadful; but—I’ve a brought’y the stockings.’ He did not speak. He understood nothing. ’Dear maister! what be thicky gun for? Did’y think I were a robber, and you fired at me? No, no! I be no robber, I be come a long way. See! I ha’ done it all myself. I sed as I would. I’ve a brought’y a pair o’ stockings all of my own knitting.’ He remained speechless. ’Look!’ she persisted; ’put thicky gashly gun away. There be no robbers here; I be your Joyce, your own poor Joyce. Look! the stockings be warm, of lambswool, and vitty, and I did knit mun every bit and croom myself.’ *CHAPTER XLV.* *’KINKUM-KUM.’* ’It be warm and comfortable in here,’ said Joyce, looking round her. ’Surely, I used to think it snug under the Table when the winds were loud; but there us had always a door open for the smoke to go out at. There were no chimney there, and there couldn’t be none, for because of the great stone overhead.’