But again she expressed dissent. It was not light in her heart. In its depths lay the hateful thought of her mother's wrong-doing. 'Do not concern yourself about the matter of the choughs,' said he, misunderstanding her, 'I went over the cliff of my own accord. I was glad of the excuse. Ever since I have broken with the smugglers I have had trouble with the young fellows of Beer. They have sneered at me as wanting in pluck. They could not account otherwise for my withdrawal. So I was glad to catch at a chance of showing that I still had a cool head and stout heart. It was nothing in itself, but it served my purpose. Winefred, it was you yourself who advised me to have done with smuggling. I have kept my word to you, but it has involved me in unpleasantness, and I am thankful to you for having given me the occasion for doing something which may possibly help to set me right in public opinion at Beer.' She shuddered. 'Oh, God have mercy on me!' she said, with a new outburst of compunction. 'I did it in malice, because I thought that I hated you.' 'Winefred, but for this we should not have met as we meet now. I should have gone on thinking that you hated me.' 'And I――I quite believed that I did hate you.' 'Now you know better. But for these choughs you would have been believing the same now and evermore.' Then, after a long pause, he said, 'We have each something to forgive and much to unlearn. I, at one time, really did suppose that your mother had stolen my inheritance.' She uttered a cry and shrank from him. 'But only for a short while,' he continued. 'After that meeting with you I was convinced that neither she nor you had injured me in that way. Your looks, your words, assured me of your entire innocence. Some folk have gone so far as to assert that your mother has employed my father's savings to send you to Bath, but I have spoken strongly against that.' He was startled by the expression of her face, by the mute agony and despair that were in it. She looked at him with blank eyes, and every particle of colour had deserted her face, even her lips. As he put out his hand to take hers, she drew back with a shiver. 'Winefred! what is the matter? I tell you that I believe that no more. Why are you frightened? Why do you look at me thus?' 'Do not ask me,' she answered. 'I cannot explain.' She laid her face in her hands. 'I will ask no questions at all,' he said. 'I am content now that I have your love. I forget all the past, with its misunderstandings. Be but yourself again. I love you with all my heart――let that be our one thought now.' She wrung her hands despairingly, looking at him with a death-like face. Her lips moved, but no words came over them. 'I love you――I love you,' she said, after a long and painful pause. 'But that is all. In the bright day comes darkness. We are two wretched creatures. We must not love each other, for we can never, never belong to each other.' 'But why not?' he asked.