"Yes, yes, man, she is my wife, safe and sound--but where is she? Tell
me for heaven's sake where has she gone?"

"Well, indeed, that I donno--Essec Powell donno--an' nobody know. You
look here now," said Shoni, "an' if you listen to me you will see
everything quite plain. After you gone away Valmai wass go down to
Fordsea to take care on her uncle, John Powell. He wass broke his leg,
and when he cum better Valmai cum back to Dinas."

"Well," said Cardo, "what then? Tell me in Welsh, you'll get on
quicker."

But Shoni indignantly declined to give up the language which he
considered he had so completely mastered.

"What then!" he continued severely, "you know very well what then. It
wass three or four months before she cum back from Fordsea, and she
wass look pale and thin and every day more like a spirit angel. Well,
everybody see very soon what wass the matter with her, and at last
somebody told Essec Powell. It was just the same time Captain Powell
died, and when Essec Powell cum home from the funeral and find out his
brother leave all his money to Valmai he go to chapel and somebody tell
him about Valmai--"

"What about Valmai?" said Cardo.

"That she was gone, like many another, over the side of the path."

"For heaven's sake, tell me what are you driving at?"

"I am telling you if you wass quiet and let me alone. That night Essec
Powell cum home from chapel in a devil of temper, and he call Valmai a
thief to steal his brother's money from him, and worse names than that,
an' he turn her out of the house that night, pwr thing, pwr thing!"

Cardo groaned and clenched his fists.

"Well! the wind wass blowing, and the snow wass fallin' shockin', and I
could not let her carry her big bundle of clothes and she in the
condition she wass--"

"Condition?" gasped Cardo, "what do you mean?"

Shoni looked at him with keen, searching eyes.

"Cardo Wynne," he said, "I wass ussed to think you an honest,
straightforward man, though you wass a churchman, and are you mean to
tell me now that you donno that Valmai Powell have a small child on the
30th June last year?"

"As God is my witness, Shoni, this is the first breath I have heard of
such a thing; but she was my wife, why then should her uncle have
turned her out?"

"But she nevare tell us that, see you, she nevare speak a word about
that, and only now lately Betto have told that the Vicare wass tell her
she was marry to you! and everybody is wonder wh