the stones I hear them crying.
The time of the dance is beaten in with sobs, and the wind is alive.
Oh, I cannot bear hell."--OLIVE SCHREINER.

For some time I was conscious of nothing, but by degrees I realised
what I had done. An awful crime rested upon my soul, a crime only the
shadow of which had rested upon me before.

The hatred of years had found expression at last. The serpent that had
lain in my heart, writhing and turning, and growing for years, had at
last lifted its head, the latent devil had asserted itself, and I was a
murderer.

A murderer!

The ghastly, terrible truth pressed itself upon me more and more. I
was alone on the weather-beaten cliff, around me all was still; beneath
me was the ever sobbing sea telling me of what I had done.

A murderer?

Oh! The terror of that thought. Even now, after long years, I
trembled at what I then realised. I, Roger Trewinion, trained by a
godly father, surrounded during my early life with every good
influence, was a murderer. In my madness I had arisen like Cain and
taken away my brother's life; in my hatred I had wrought desolation.

Alone! alone; with only the mocking sea to speak to me from without;
while within I felt the fires of hell.

I saw, as in a lightning flash, the events of the past twenty years. I
saw myself and Wilfred playing, rollicking on the cliffs, I saw us
rushing home from school, and nutting among the woods. Again we were
together in the waving cornfields, or swimming in the shining seas. We
were reared in the same home, and had through our childhood slept in
the same room. We both bore the same name, and the same blood ran in
our veins.

And I remembered more than that. Thousands of incidents concerning the
happy days of childhood flashed through my memory. Then we had few
cares and many joys. I saw us sitting in the old family pew in church,
and the lines of the old hymns we had sung came back to me, hymns about
the love of God and the Cross of Christ.

And I had murdered him! Never, in my wildest moments, did I dream that
my hatred of Wilfred would ever take outward form in actual killing. I
did not mean to kill him when we stood together, and held him in my
arms. But he fell from me--fell from that awful height, down, down,
among the cruel jagged rocks, and would be dashed to pieces, while the
mocking waves would sweep over him.

Now, where was the purpose of my hate, my revenge? They had not won
back the