, and still Maaster Wilfred kept her to her
promise. The banes (banns) was called in church, and the day fixed;
but she got thinner and thinner, till 'bout a week ago she--she----"

"She what? Tell me?"

"She died. Goodness gracious, who be you?"

"Ruth dead! Died of a broken heart! Wilfred, your cup is full! You
shall die for this!" I cried wildly. My brain was on fire, my heart
was breaking. I had come home for this! The message was a mockery,
nothing was before me but despair and--revenge.

"Look you!" cried Bill, "you be--iss, good Lord--you be Maaster Roger!"

"Yes, Roger," I said, "come home for this!"

"Oa, Maaster Roger, I wish I 'ad'n tould 'ee. I'd a bite my tongue out
fust; but I ded'n knaw, and yet I thought you was somebody I'd seed
before. Oa, Maaster Roger, do'ant 'ee give way so. Oa, to think you
should 'ev bin dead, and come back livin', and that Bill Tregargus shud
hev bin the fust to tell 'ee the bad news. Ef I'd only knaw'd I'd ev
altered it; but I ded'n."

I conquered myself at last. I had been in a hard school during the
last ten years, living almost without hope in life, and so I felt it
less than if I buoyed myself up with joyful hopes. Still, it was
terrible, terrible. If I had come home a month before it might have
been different, but I was too late. Ah, I was cursed, cursed with the
Trewinion's curse!

"Bill," I said, after many wild questions on my part, and excited
exclamations on his, for he could not realise that I was alive, "tell
me all about it, all about her death, and everything."

"Well, Maaster Roger," said Bill, "what I knaw is through Jane Treloar,
who was Miss Ruth's maid, and she came back yesterday by the coach.
She do live here, you do knaw, sur. Well, she tould me and the cook
that she only made one request when she got very ill, and that was that
Maaster Wilfred shouldn't see her. She got weaker, sur, very fast, and
never spoke to anybody, and died without a murmur."

"When was she buried?"

"Two days agone, sur."

"Where?"

"In the church, sur, near her house, in the vault under the Communion,
so Jane Treloar said."

For a long time Bill and I remained together, until I saw the evening
shadows fall, then I made up my mind I would go to the Hall.

"Bill," I said, "did you know me at all while we were talking?"

"Not until you got wild, sur, then it struck me who you was. Nobody
would recognise you at once, sur, you've so altered."

"