d you----"

"Stop," said she. "He? Who?"

"O! madam," cried I, my bitterness breaking forth, "do you ask me such a
question? Indeed, then, I may go elsewhere for help; there is none
here!"

"I do not know in what I have offended you," said she. "Forgive me; put
me out of this suspense."

But I dared not tell her yet; I felt not sure of her; and at the doubt,
and under the sense of impotence it brought with it, I turned on the
poor woman with something near to anger.

"Madam," said I, "we are speaking of two men: one of them insulted you,
and you ask me which. I will help you to the answer. With one of these
men you have spent all your hours: has the other reproached you? To one
you have been always kind; to the other, as God sees me and judges
between us two, I think not always: has his love ever failed you?
To-night one of these two men told the other, in my hearing--the hearing
of a hired stranger,--that you were in love with him. Before I say one
word, you shall answer your own question: Which was it? Nay, madam, you
shall answer me another: If it has come to this dreadful end, whose
fault is it?"

She stared at me like one dazzled. "Good God!" she said once, in a kind
of bursting exclamation; and then a second time in a whisper to herself:
"Great God!--In the name of mercy, Mackellar, what is wrong?" she cried.
"I am made up; I can hear all."

"You are not fit to hear," said I. "Whatever it was, you shall say first
it was your fault."

"O!" she cried, with a gesture of wringing her hands, "this man will
drive me mad! Can you not put _me_ out of your thoughts?"

"I think not once of you," I cried. "I think of none but my dear unhappy
master."

"Ah!" she cried, with her hand to her heart, "is Henry dead?"

"Lower your voice," said I. "The other."

I saw her sway like something stricken by the wind; and I know not
whether in cowardice or misery, turned aside and looked upon the floor.
"These are dreadful tidings," said I at length, when her silence began
to put me in some fear; "and you and I behove to be the more bold if the
house is to be saved." Still she answered nothing. "There is Miss
Katharine, besides," I added: "unless we bring this matter through, her
inheritance is like to be of shame."

I do not know if it was the thought of her child or the naked word shame
that gave her deliverance; at least I had no sooner spoken than a sound
passed her lips, the like of it I never heard; it was as thoug