"Yes, I _knew_," he answers. "I knew, but I did not care. My love for you was turned to hate by the crushing indignity you had put upon me. At that time I would have sold myself to the evil one for the chance of revenge upon you. Guess how I felt when, at the inquest over the dead body of the lover you had preferred to me, I found what terrible power fate had put into my eager hands. I rejoiced wickedly. I went away that the great ocean rolling between us might keep from me the tidings of your too probable fate, for I shuddered at the horror of my revenge, although I could not forego it. Yes, Maud, I, who had loved you dearly once, would not have lifted my finger to save you from the horror of a shameful death upon the scaffold; do you realize, now, the intensity of my hate?" She puts her delicate hand to her grand, white throat and sobs hysterically. By day and by night she has dreamed of that horrible, impending death. She knows that all believed her guilty of her lover's death, and that no jury would have cleared her without that note in Clyde's own writing, swearing that he would shoot himself if she failed to marry him. "You were cruel, cruel," she moans. "Say rather that I was insane," he answers; "my heart and my brain were on fire, and my soul was numb within me until Reine came to me and showed me what a wretch I was, and how I should be your murderer if I persisted in my wicked silence. Then I yielded to that white-souled child who was far too pure to be my wife, and I prayed God to forgive my sin, as I now pray you, Maud." She looks at him with her large, clear blue eyes, with the glad tears of joy still pendant on the golden lashes and holds out her hands. "I cannot refuse to forgive you since you have relented and brought me this invaluable paper," she answers, "and more especially since I know that I did you a cruel wrong. Can _you_ forgive _me_, Vane?" "Once I thought I could not, but it is easy enough now," he answers, gravely, just touching for a moment the soft, white, extended hands. "I have no longer any room in my heart for anger or resentment. I think only of my grief." "For Reine!" she asks, with an almost imperceptible lifting of the golden eyebrows indicating surprise. "For Reine," he answers, with a tortured sigh. "Did she die abroad?" Maud asks in an awed and softened voice. "She was drowned at midnight in the Atlantic Ocean, amid all the horrors of fire and flood," he groans. "On the ill-fated _Hesperus_," she exclaims. "Oh, I read the news in the papers, but there were no particulars, and I did not dream of such a tragedy. You were with her, were you not? Why was it that you could not save her?" His gloomy eyes fell with a look of loathing on the paper in her hand. "She died, Maud, to save _you_ from the consequences of your folly. She might have been saved but for that paper you hold in your hand," he answers, sternly.