t eases you."

"I have to share it with some one, and I can trust you not to think
hardly of my poor Joan."

I wondered what was coming, but I had not long to wait. My godmother
looked at me again, straight into my eyes, as though she would see to
the depths of my soul.

"I have forgiven her, poor dear soul, with all my heart," she said. "If
I thought you could judge her hardly I would not tell you; but I think
you will not judge her hardly. You see, she loved Luke. He had a way
with women. She was always delicate and sickly, and he was sorry for
her. He used to sit by her and talk to her. She loved him and she
thought that he loved her, or would love her if I were out of the way. I
had everything, she thought--health and wealth and the world before me,
and Luke's love. She thought it unfair that I should have so much. No
wonder she wanted Luke for herself."

Again her eyes looked into mine, asking a question. Whatever she saw
satisfied her, for she went on again with dreamy tenderness--

"I see you can pity her, Bawn. Child, how do you know it if you never
loved? He came to this house when he was flying from justice, as he
thought, expecting to find me and found her instead. He gave her such
messages for me as might make any woman proud. He would release me, but
he knew I was too great-hearted to accept the release; he had killed
Jasper Tuite in the struggle when he tried to save Irene Cardew from
him. He had seen Jasper Tuite strike poor Irene when he was trying to
drag her from her carriage to ride with him on his horse. She was
screaming, poor girl, and Jasper Tuite struck her on the mouth. And what
would my Luke do save spring on to Jasper Tuite and close with him? And
Jasper Tuite would have shot him if Luke had not fired in self-defence.
No jury would have convicted Luke, for Jasper Tuite died from
heart-failure, not from the flesh-wound of Luke's pistol. But if I had
only been here when he stole here under cover of the darkness I would
have made him hold his ground."

"And he saw Miss Standish instead?"

"Yes, he saw Joan. And she kept his messages all these years. There was
more than that. I was to send him a message to where he was in hiding,
waiting for a passage to America. I sent him none, but Joan sent him one
instead. She was jealous, terribly jealous, or she could not have done
it, poor girl. She sent him word that he was not to return, that Jasper
Tuite was dead of his wound. Also she sent him w