itre; at
the foot of the steps was her false lover--husband he had called
himself--with his hat off, and his white face turned in the last
supplication towards her, as hers had been turned towards him just now.
Should a woman be as pitiless as a man?

"Come down, for God's sake, and climb that cursed wood, and pull back
the fuse, pull it back from the powder. Oh, Polly! and then we will go
away together."

"It is too late. I will not risk my baby. You have made me so weak that
I could never climb that fence. You are blowing up the castle which you
promised to my baby; but you shall not blow up him. You told me to run
away, and run I must. Good-bye; I am going to my natural supporters."

Carne heard her steps as she fled, and he fancied that he heard
therewith a mocking laugh, but it was a sob, a hysterical sob. She would
have helped him, if she dared; but her wits were gone in panic. She knew
not of his shattered limbs and horrible plight; and it flashed across
her that this was another trick of his--to destroy her and the baby,
while he fled. She had proved that all his vows were lies.

Then Carne made his mind up to die like a man, for he saw that escape
was impossible. Limping back to the fatal barrier, he raised himself
to his full height, and stood proudly to see, as he put it, the last
of himself. Not a quiver of his haughty features showed the bodily pain
that racked him, nor a flinch of his deep eyes confessed the tumult
moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the
top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the
time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed
through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork--a big
rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon
it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it
a little from its fatal end? He was strong enough to do it, if he only
understood. The fizz of saltpetre disturbed the rat, and he hoisted his
tail and skipped back to his home.

The last thoughts of this unhappy man went back upon his early days; and
things, which he had passed without thinking of, stood before him like
his tombstone. None of his recent crimes came now to his memory to
disturb it--there was time enough after the body for them--but trifles
which had first depraved the mind, and slips whose repetition had made
slippery the soul, like the alphabet of de