"There was another reason why I did not tell you all this before. I feared to lose your love, Madelaine, if you ever came to a knowledge of the truth. I felt that I could bear anything rather than your scorn and shrinking, and I knew only too well how richly I deserved such treatment at your hands. A friend who was witness when old Wattie fell, promised to write and tell you how I met my end. He was to say nothing of what had gone before, only to give you to understand that I had been drowned in some far-off river in the west." "Yes," sobbed Madelaine, "that is what I heard. How could anyone be so cruel as to send such false tidings to me, when you were still alive?" "He only told you what he believed to be true," answered Gerald. "He saw me swept away by the rushing current, and in a few moments I was out of his sight, lost in the grey gloom of the early dawn. He never imagined that I escaped, and I took good care not to tell him, desiring that all trace of me should be lost. I feared that he might give information against me if I turned up again, knowing as he well did that death in some form was only my due. I am glad however that he fulfilled his promise, so that at least you were not kept in suspense as to what had become of me." "Oh, Gerald, why did you not send for me to join you, when you knew that you would have after all to face life with this dreadful weight upon you?" said Madelaine with a pained look in her honest eyes, as she rose at last from her knees and stood beside her husband. "Why did you not at least give me the option of bearing it with you?" "I could not ask you to share such a dark future, dear one," replied Gerald. "My life for the last ten years has been a hideous nightmare, a constant dread of discovery and of the punishment which would inevitably follow. You were far better without me in your innocent ignorance of what had come to pass. Now, Madelaine, there is my confession. I have kept nothing back. The best thing you can do is to let me pass out of your life again, so that you and Robin may continue your quiet way in peace and honour. Even though it tear my heart out to leave you, it is the least atonement I can make for what I have done." Madelaine stood for a moment looking up into her husband’s face, then putting both her hands into his, she said softly-- "’For better, for worse,’ Gerald. I am your wife, and nothing shall ever part us again. Robin and I will go with you to begin over again in some quiet corner, where we may yet be happy together through the blessing of God."