he said, looking at her with haggard eyes.

There was a long pause. She knew he had told her all in the one
sentence--all she had guessed.

"She did not know I knew," she went on, presently. "She believed no one
knew. Oh, I tell you again, she was heart-breaking! She did not know that
there were wild moments when she dropped words that could be linked into
facts and formed into a chain."

"Had you formed it," he asked, "when you wrote and told me she had died?"

"Yes. It had led me to you--to nothing more. I felt death had saved her
from what would have been worse. It seemed as if--the blackest
devil--would be glad to know."

"I am the blackest devil, perhaps," he said, with stony helplessness,
"but when I received your letter I was grovelling on my knees praying
that I might get back to her--and atone--as far as a black devil could."

"And she was _dead_," said Miss Amory, wringing her hands together on her
lap; "dead--dead."

She stopped suddenly and turned on him. "He killed himself," she cried,
"because he found out that it was _you_!"

"Yes. I was the one man he loved--he had told his secret to me--to
_me!_--the black devil. Now--now I must go to his mother, day after day,
and be her son--because I was his friend--and knew his love for
Margery--and of her sweetness--and her happy, peaceful death. He used to
talk to me for hours; she--poor, tender soul--will talk to me again--of
Margery--Margery--Margery--and of Lucien, whose one happiness I was."

"It will--almost--be--enough," said Miss Amory, slowly.

"Yes," he answered; "it will almost be enough--even for a black devil."

And he turned on his chair and laid his face on his folded arms and
sobbed like a woman.

CHAPTER XLII

The springtime sunshine had been smiling upon Talbot's Cross-roads all
the day. It was not hot, but warm, and its beauty was added to by the
little soft winds which passed through the branches of the blossoming
apple and pear trees and shook the fragrance from them. The brown earth
was sweet and odorous, as it had been on the Sunday morning Sheba had
knelt and kissed it, and the garden had covered itself, as then, with
hyacinths and daffodils and white narcissus.

During the last weeks the Cross-roads had existed in something like a
state of delirium. People rode in from the mountains and returned to
their homes after hours of conversation, semi-stupefied with enjoyment.
Tom D'Willerby had won his claims. After months