d the front room,
which was fitted up as a sort of shop, in which fishermen's requisites
were sold. There was no one there. He pushed the door open into the
inner room: it was also empty. He felt as if he could not breathe within
the cottage walls, and went out again. The cliff overhung the sea a few
yards in front of the cottage. He went to the edge and was scanning the
shore for a sign of Jean, when below, on a narrow, zigzag path which led
down the cliff to the beach, he perceived his wife. She stood at a turn
in the path, looking downwards. There was something about her that to
Peter made her seem different from what she had ever seemed before. He
looked at Louise, and he saw a woman with a shadow of guilt upon her.
The path below her was concealed from Peter's sight by an over-hanging
piece of rock, but she seemed to be watching someone coming slowing up
it. Then she glanced fearfully round, and saw Peter standing on the top
of the cliff. She made a hasty sign to the person below, but already a
man's hand leaning on a stick was visible beyond the edge of the rock.
Peter strode straight down the face of the cliff to the turning in the
path. Louise screamed. Peter seized by the collar a puny, crooked
creature, whom he scarcely stopped to look at, and held him, as one
might a cat, over the cliff-side.

"Swear you'll quit the island to-night, or I'll drop you," he thundered.

The creature merely screamed for mercy, and seemed unable to articulate
a sentence; while Louise knelt, clasping Peter's knees in an agony of
entreaty. Meanwhile, the screaming ceased; the creature had fainted in
Peter's grasp. He flung him down on the path, said sternly to Louise,
"Come with me," and they went up the cliff-side together.

They walked home without a word, Louise crying and moaning a little, but
not daring to speak. When they got inside the cabin, he stood and faced
her.

"Woman," he said, in a low, shaken voice, "What hast thou done?"

She fell upon her knees, crying. "Forgive me, Peter," she entreated.
"Thou art such a strong man; forgive me."

"Tell me the whole truth. What is this man to thee?"

She knelt in silence, shaken with sobs.

"Who is he?" said Peter, his voice getting deeper and hoarser.

She only kept moaning, "Forgive me." Presently she said between her
sobs, "I only went this morning to tell him to go away. I wanted him to
go away; I have prayed him to go again and again."

"Since when hast thou known hi