She told me how they had hatched up a lie about my having made love to
Gwen. To prove this, David had plotted to make me walk that evil night
with his false sister to the Clwm Rock. Rhoda had at first refused to
believe their story. But when she saw us--for she lay concealed behind
the rock--pass by as if we were lovers, with Gwen's darned face resting
on my bosom, she was cheated into thinking me false. Still she would
have heard me, and learned the truth before I left Glanwern, but her old
father interfered; and when I was gone, and Gwen had never delivered my
letter, she consented to wed David--just, as you may say, for the sake
of peace--believing the yarn they invented, that I had run away to sea
and would never come back. It was not, indeed, until she received my
letter from Aberdeen that she learned how wickedly she had been
deceived. From that moment she fell ill, and nothing would please her
but to return to Miller Howell's house. As for David, indeed, she would
not look at him, or speak to him; and she did but sit still and wait for
death, hoping, as she told me, that Hugh Anwyl might return before the
end came.

My lads, her sweet voice somehow steadied my brain. I saw the whole
spider's web unfolded. Gwen and David had plotted to sink our craft,
and there we lay waterlogged.

"Shall I smash the pair of them?" I said.

"For my sake, no, indeed," she answered. "Let us forget them. It is
too late, Hugh Anwyl."

Mates, I rose from that hammock that very instant, a strong, hale seaman
once more. My life was wrecked, in so far as happiness goes. But the
strength remained to me. Not so, poor little Rhoda. Her cheek was
hollow, and the bright eyes shone like the evening stars in the southern
seas. So weak was she, that I had to support her back to Miller
Howell's house.

"Come in, Hugh Anwyl," says the old, greedy father, looking as if he
could drop down dead from shame and sorrow on the doorstep. "Come in.
This is stormy weather."

I couldn't speak to the man. I would not reproach him with having been
the cause of this wreck--for his features, indeed, displayed the
punishment he had received. But I came in, and I sat down by Rhoda's
side on the sofa.

In a minute or two, the door opens, and a figure intrudes itself.

Rhoda put her hands in front of her face, as if she was shamed beyond
all bearing, indeed. I started to my legs, for I could have killed the
man.

It was David Thomas