th that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy's
arms.

Taffy carried him--a featherweight--to the cottage where Lizzie stood
by her table washing up. She saw them at the gate and came running
out.

"It's all right. He slipped--out on the cliff. Nothing more than a
scratch or two, and perhaps a sprained ankle."

He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his
stockings. He had never seen the child's foot naked. She turned
suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the
deformity.

"Have you heard?" she asked.

"What?"

"_She_ has a boy! Ah!" she laughed harshly, "I thought that would
hurt you. Well, you _have_ been a silly!"

"I don't think I understand."

"You don't think you understand!" she mimicked. "And you're not fond
of her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly--to let him take
her, and never tell!"

"Tell?"

She faced him, hardening her gaze. "Yes, tell--" She nodded slowly;
while Joey, unobserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes.

"Men don't fight like that." The words were out before it struck him
that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face,
however, told him nothing. She could not know. "_You_ have never
told," he added.

"Because--" she began, but could not tell him the whole truth.
And yet what he said was true. "Because you would not let me," she
muttered.

"In the churchyard, you mean--on her wedding day?"

"Before that."

"But before that I never guessed."

"All the same I knew what you were. You wouldn' have let me.
It came to the same thing. And if I had told--Oh, you make it hard
for me!" she wailed.

He stared at her, understanding this only--that somehow he could
control her will.

"I will never let you tell," he said gravely.

"I hate her!"

"You shall not tell."

"Listen"--she drew close and touched his arm. "He never cared for
her; it's not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay--not
as she might have cared for _you_--but she's his wife, and some women
are like that. There's her pride, any way. Suppose--suppose he came
back to me?"

"If I caught him--" Taffy began: but the poor child, who for two
minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a
wail:

"Oh, mother! my foot--it hurts so!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

FACE TO FACE.

The first winter had interrupted all work upon the rock; but Taffy
and his men had used the calm days of the f