It burst upon me with a shock. Why should he not have done it? His resentment over Zyp’s preference was as much of a motive with him as with me--ten thousand times more so, taking his nature into account and the immunity from risk my deed had opened to him. I remembered the scene by the river, when Zyp was drowning, and my hand shook as I held him. He sprung from me. “I didn’t--I didn’t!” he shrieked. “How dare you say such a thing?” “Oh,” I groaned, “shall I hand you over to Duke Straw, when the time comes, and be quit of you forever?” “Don’t be a cruel brute!” he answered, almost whimpering. “I didn’t do it, I tell you. But perhaps he didn’t die of drowning, and I may have had my suspicions.” “Of me?” “No, no--not really of you, upon my oath; but some one else.” “And yet all these years you have held the horror over my head and have made wicked capital out of it.” “I wanted the changeling--that was why.” I threw him from me, so that he staggered against the wall. “You are such a despicable beast,” I said, “that I’ll pollute my hands with you no longer. Answer me one thing more. Where’s the letter my father wrote to me when you were leaving Winton?” “It went to your old lodgings. The man handed it to me to give to you when I called there.” “And you tore it up?” “Yes. I didn’t want you to know Zyp and I were married.” “Now, I’ve done with you. For Zyp’s sake I give you the chance of escaping from the dreadful fate that awaits you if you get in that other’s way. I warn you--nothing further. For the rest, never come near me again, or look to me to hold out a finger of help to you. Beyond that, if you breathe one more note of the hideous slander with which you have pursued me for years, I go heart and soul with Duke in destroying you. You may be guilty of Modred’s death, as you are in God’s sight the murderer of that unhappy child who has gone to His judgment.” “I didn’t kill him,” he muttered again; and with that, without another word or look, I left him. CHAPTER XXIX. A SUDDEN DETERMINATION. The inquest was over; the jury had returned a merciful verdict; the mortal perishing part of poor, weak and lovable Dolly was put gently out of sight for the daisies to grow over by and by. Jason had been called, but, not responding, and his presumed evidence being judged not necessarily material to the inquiry, had escaped the responsibility of an examination and, as I knew, for the time being at least, a deadlier risk. Mention of his name left an ugly stain on the proceedings, and that was all. Now, night after night, alone with myself and my despair, I sat brooding over the wreck and ruin of my life. Zyp, so far as this life was concerned, could never now be mine; and full realization of this had burst upon me only at the moment when the moral barrier that had divided me from her was broken down. That wound must forevermore eat like a cancer within me.