die?"

"I killed him," he shouted, springing to his feet and waving his hands
wildly. "There! It has told itself. I knew it would. It has been eating
its way out of my heart for months. I should have died if I had kept it
secret for another moment. I feel relieved already. You do not know what
it means to guard a secret night and day for years, do you? Oh, how
sweet it is to tell it at last. I killed him! I killed him! I struck him
with a stone. I crushed his skull and turned him face downward in the
road and left him there so that when they found him they would think
that he had fallen from his horse. It was well done, for one who had
had no training in crime! No one has suspected it. I am in no danger.
And yet I could not keep the secret any longer. Explain that, will you?
If my tongue had been torn out by the roots, my eyes would have looked
it, and if my eyes had been seared with a red-hot iron, my hands would
have written it. A crime can find a thousand tongues! And now that I
have told it, I feel so much happier. You would not believe it, Pepeeta.
I am like myself again. I feel as if I should never be unkind or
irritable any more. The load has fallen from my heart. Come, now, and
kiss me. Let me take you in my arms."

Extending his hands, he approached her. As he did so, the look of horror
with which she had regarded him intensified and she retreated before him
until she reached the wall, looking like a sea-bird hurled against a
precipice by a storm. Such dread was on her face that he dared not touch
her.

"What is the matter?" he said. "Are you afraid of me?"

She did not reply, but gazed at him as if he were some monster suddenly
risen from the deep. He endured the glance for a single moment, and
then, realizing the crime which he had committed had excited an
uncontrollable repulsion for him in her soul, he staggered backward and
sank once more into his chair, the picture of helpless and hopeless
despair.

For a long time Pepeeta gazed at him without moving or speaking. And
then, as she beheld his misery, the look of horror slowly melted into
one of pity, until she seemed like an angel who from some vast distance
surveys a sinful man. Gradually she began to realize that he who had
committed this dreadful deed was her own lover, and that it was the
result of that guilty affection which they bore each other. The
consciousness of her own complicity softened her. She moved towards him;
she spoke.

"Forgive