he burden I had to bear was heaven's punishment for my guilty
love, at other times my whole soul rose in revolt, and I cried out not
merely for separation from my husband but for absolute sundering.

Twice during the painful period of the house-party I heard from Martin.
His first letter was full of accounts of the far-reaching work of his
expedition--the engaging of engineers, electricians, geologists and
masons, and the shipping of great stores of wireless apparatus--for his
spirits seemed to be high, and life was full of good things for him.

His second letter told me that everything was finished, and he was to
visit the island the next week, going first to "the old folks" and
coming to me for a few days immediately before setting sail.

That brought matters to a head, and compelled me to take action.

It may have been weak of me, but not wanting a repetition of the scene
with Father Dan, (knowing well that Martin would not bear it with the
same patience) I sent the second letter to Alma, asking if the
arrangement would be agreeable. She returned it with the endorsement
(scribbled in pencil across the face), "Certainly; anything to please
_you_, dear."

I submitted even to that. Perhaps I was a poor-spirited thing, wanting
in proper pride, but I had a feeling that it was not worth while to
waste myself in little squibs of temper, because an eruption was coming
(I was sure of that) in which Martin would be concerned on my side, and
then everybody and everything would be swept out of the path of my life
for ever.

Martin came. In due course I read in the insular newspapers of his
arrival on the island--how the people had turned out in crowds to cheer
him at the pier, and how, on reaching our own village the neighbours (I
knew the names of all of them) had met him at the railway station and
taken him to his mother's house, and then lighted fires on the mountains
for his welcome home.

It cut me to the heart's core to think of Martin amid thrilling scenes
like those while I was here among degrading scenes like these. My love
for Martin was now like a wound and I resolved that, come what might,
before he reached Castle Raa I should liberate myself from the thraldom
of my false position.

Father Dan's counsels had faded away by this time. Though I had prayed
for strength to bear my burden there had been no result, and one
morning, standing before the figure of the Virgin in my bedroom, I felt
an impulse to blow ou