He was assassinated--shot down like a mad dog in broad
daylight--no one ever knew by whom, or why. He hadn't an enemy in the
world we knew of.... And now Drummond...!"

"Mary, Mary!" he pleaded. "Don't--don't--those things were all
accidents--"

She paid him no heed. She didn't seem to hear. He tried to take her
hand, with a man's dull, witless notion of the way to comfort a
distraught woman; but she snatched it from his touch.

"And now"--her voice pealed out like a great bell tolling over the
magnificent solitude of the forsaken island--"and now I have it to live
through once again: the wonder and terror and beauty of love, the agony
and passion of having you torn from me!... Hugh!... I don't believe I
can endure it again. I can't _bear_ this exquisite torture. I'm afraid I
shall go mad!... Unless ... unless"--her voice shuddered--"I have the
strength, the strength to--"

"Good God!" he cried in desperation. "You must not go on like this!
Mary! Listen to me!"

This time he succeeded in imprisoning her hand. "Mary," he said gently,
drawing closer to her, "listen to me; understand what I say. I love you;
I am your husband; nothing can possibly come between us. All these other
things can be explained. Don't let yourself think for another instant--"

Her eyes, fixed upon the two hands in which he clasped her own, had
grown wide and staring with dread. Momentarily she seemed stunned. Then
she wrenched it from him, at the same time jumping up and away.

"No!" she cried, fending him from her with shaking arms. "No! Don't
touch me! Don't come near me, Hugh! It's ... it's death! My touch is
death! I know it now--I had begun to suspect, now I _know_! I am
accursed--doomed to go through life like pestilence, leaving sorrow and
death in my wake.... Hugh!" She controlled herself a trifle: "Hugh, I
love you more than life; I love you more than love itself. But you must
not come near me. Love me if you must, but, O my dear one! keep away
from me; avoid me, forget me if you can, but at all cost shun me as you
would the plague! I will not give myself to you to be your death!"

Before he could utter a syllable in reply, she turned and fled from him,
wildly, blindly stumbling, like a hunted thing back up the ascent to the
farm-house. He followed, vainly calling on her to stop and listen to
him. But she outdistanced him, and by the time he had entered the house
was in her room, behind a locked door.

XIX

CAPITULATION