“‘Devil!’ screamed this maniac, ‘you shall not ruin my child, as you have ruined me,’ and she stabbed Diana furiously in the side with a knife. Then she leaped upon me. I had the bowie in my hand. There was an instant’s struggle. I felt her cutting at my neck. I was not aware of using my weapon, but she stiffened in my arms and sank away, bloody and wounded. She died there in a moment, horribly--she, Diana’s mother! “Diana had fallen fainting, but not unconscious--she had seen the whole. I sprang to her. She repelled me with a look of horror. I was covered with blood, my own, her mother’s, hers. I screamed for help. The old nurse came out, crouching with terror. Diana dragged herself away, turning back to give me a glance of utter agony. “I was left alone with the corpse; I washed my own wounds; they were but trifling. I longed for death. I seemed to myself an assassin. I set myself to remove the traces of the struggle. The old nurse came out and aided me, cowering and shrinking away as I touched her. We carried the poor, lifeless body in--Diana’s mother, feebly like her daughter. Diana joined us, pale to death. She gave me her hand solemnly. “‘Go,’ she said, ‘this is between us forever--between me and my undying love. I am better. Do not fear for me. Go. God save and pardon us. Let this be a secret between us and Him.’ “I crept away like a guilty man. My horse had recovered from his sprain; I rode off and left him with the nearest settler, five miles from her house. I returned and lurked like a wild beast in the woods. I saw the funeral. No one was present but her own people. She was pale, but calm and strong. I must fly despairfully, and on my hands the stain of her mother’s blood. “My friend, the settler, told me as a piece of general indifferent news that the madwoman up at the big house had killed herself in a fit. That was the accepted story and went uncontradicted. Soon after, I joined you in New York. “That is my story. You can imagine the gradual calming of our minds, as we recognised our real guiltlessness. You can understand why, to escape questions, we seemed not to know each other. We learnt in our daily meetings here that we need not shrink from a new friendship, and then, by a chance confidence at the picnic, that our love was unchanged. “And now, Paulding, forgive this unwilling reticence of mine. You know what was this old wound. I fear the worst. But that we will not speak of.” “It is a wide world, Harry,” said Paulding. “There is room in it for many exiles. I shall find my home for wandering--somewhere--anywhere.” The moon sank away drearily, leaving a ghastly paleness in the west. And the melancholy breakers, in darkness now, went on falling, hesitating, lifting, falling on the black rocks, counting the measures of a desolate eternity. CHAPTER XXII IN WHICH MR. BELDEN REACHES THE END OF HIS ROPE