der in your eyes!' said my mother, taken off
her guard.

'Oh, mother, mother, can you not see that no wolf with a stolen lamb
in its mouth was ever more pitilessly shot down by the owner of that
lamb than any hireling wolf of yours would be shot down by me?'

'Boy, are you quite demented?'

'Listen, mother. To prevent Winifred from knowing that her father had
stolen that amulet, and so brought down upon her the curse, I would
have drowned her with myself in the tide. We sat waiting for the tide
to drown us, when the settlement came at the last moment and buried
it away from her. Is it likely that I should hesitate to kill a
clodhopper, or a score, if only to take my vengeance on you and Fate?
The homicide now will be yours.'

She left, giving me a glance of defiance; but before our eyes ended
that conflict, I saw which of us had conquered.

'Hate is strong,' I murmured, as I sank down on my pillow, 'and
destiny is strong; but oh, Winnie, Winnie--stronger than hate, and
stronger than destiny and death, is love. She knows, Winnie, that the
life of the man who should dig up that corpse would not be worth an
hour's purchase; she knows, Winnie, that in the court of conscience
she alone is answerable now for what may befall; and you are safe!
But poor mother! My poor dear mother, whom once I loved so dearly,
was it indeed you I struggled with just now? Mother, mother, was it
you?'

This interview retarded my recovery, and I had a serious relapse.

The fever was a severe one. The symptoms were aggravated by these
most painful and trying interviews with my mother, and by my
increasing anxiety about the fate of Winifred. Yet my vigorous
constitution began to show signs of conquering. Of Winifred I could
learn nothing, save what could be gleaned from the servants in
attendance, who seemed merely to have heard that Tom Wynne was
missing, that he had probably fallen drunk over the cliff and been
washed out to sea, and that his daughter was seeking him everywhere.
As the days passed by, however, and no hint reached me that the
corpse had been found on the sands, I concluded that, when the larger
mass finally settled on the night of the landslip, the corpse had
fallen immediately beneath it, and was buried under the main mass.
Yet, from what I had seen of the corpse's position, in the rapid view
I had of it, perched on the upright mass of sward, I did not
understand how this could be.

And so anxiety after anxiety delayed