"No--not as brother and sister. We are children no longer. But, Jonas, I have no wish, no thought other than that he should leave Thursley, and that I should never, never, never see his face again. Of thought, of word, of act against my duty to you I am guiltless. Of thoughts, as far as I have been able to hold my thoughts in chains, of words, of acts I have nothing to reproach myself with, there have been none but what might be known to you, in a light clearer than that poured down by this moon. You will believe me, Jonas." He looked searchingly into her beautiful, pale face--now white as snow in the moonlight. After a long pause, he answered, "I do not believe you." "I can say no more," she spoke and sighed, and went forward. He now lagged behind. They stepped off the sand ridge, and were again in treacherous soil, neither land nor water, but land and water tossed together in strips and tags and tatters. "Go on," he said. "I will step after you." Presently she looked behind her, and saw him swinging his right hand, in which was the lump of ironstone. "Why do you turn your head?" he asked. "I look for you." "Are you afraid of me?" "I am sorry for you, Jonas." "Sorry--because of my arm?" "Because you are unable to believe a true woman's word." "I do not understand you." "No--I do not suppose you can." Then he screamed, "No, I do not believe." He leaped forward, and struck her on the head with the nodule of iron, and felled her at his feet. "There," said he; "with this stone you sought my death, and with it I cause yours." Then he knelt where she lay motionless, extended, in the marsh, half out of the water, half submerged. He gripped her by the throat, and by sheer force, with his one available arm, thrust her head under water. The moonlight played in the ripples as they closed over her face; it surely was not water, but liquid silver, fluid diamond. He endeavored to hold her head under the surface. She did not struggle. She did not even move. But suddenly a pang shot through him, as though he had been pierced by another bullet. The bandage about his wound gave way, and the hot blood broke forth again. Jonas reeled back in terror, lest his consciousness should desert him, and he sank for an instant insensible, face foremost, into the water. As it was, where he knelt, among the water-plants, they were yielding under his weight. He scrambled away, and clung to a distorted pine on the summit of a sand-knoll. Giddy and faint, he laid his head against the bush, and inhaled the invigorating odor of the turpentine. Gradually he recovered, and was able to stand unsupported. Then he looked in the direction where Mehetabel lay. She had not stirred. The bare white arms were exposed and gleaming in the moonlight. The face he did not see. He shrank from looking towards it. Then he slunk away, homewards. CHAPTER XXV. AN APPARITION.