the fire beside which they sat later on
in the twilight illumined the low room and flashed out on the privet
hedge, now a mass of sparkling icicles. She and Geraldine had driven
into Brail, and by and by the carriage was coming back to fetch her.

They had been talking of Mat, and Mr. O'Brien had shown her some of his
letters; and then, all at once, his face had grown very white and
troubled, and in a few husky sentences he had told her the rest of the
story; and as Audrey listened there was a gleam of a teardrop on her
long lashes.

'But you went to see him--surely you went to see him?' she asked
tremulously, as he came to a sudden pause; but he shook his gray head
very sorrowfully.

'I would have gone, ay, willingly, when my anger had burnt out a bit. I
just hungered to see the poor lad--he was still a lad to me--and to
shake him by the hand; for all he had done, he was still Mat, you see;
but he would not let me: he begged and prayed of me not to come.'

'Ah, that was cruel!'

'Nay, he meant no unkindness; but he was pretty nearly crazed, poor
chap! I have the letter now that he wrote to me; the chaplain sent it,
but no eye but mine must ever see it. I have written it down in my will
that it is to be buried with me: "Don't come unless you wish me to do
something desperate, Tom; I think if I saw your honest face in my cell
I should just make away with myself. No, no, dear old chap; let me dree
my weird, as Susan used to say. I have shamed you all, and my heart is
broken; try to forget that you ever had a brother Mat." Eh, they were
desperate words for a man to write; but I do not doubt that he meant
them.'

'Did he mention his wife and children?'

'No, never a word of them. I wrote to him more than once, but he never
answered me. He was such a long way off, you see; they send them to
Dartmoor now. As far as I know, Mat may be dead and buried. Well, it is
hard lines, and I have known a peck of troubles in my time. There, you
know it all, Miss Ross; it beats me why I've told you, for no one in the
world knows it but Prissy--you have drawn it out of me somehow; you've
got a hearty way with you that reminds me of my Susan, and I never had
but that one secret from her--when I sent Mat the two five-pound notes.'

'Your story is safe with me, my dear old friend,' returned Audrey,
laying her hand on his arm; 'you must never regret telling me. I have
heard so many sad histories--people always tell me their troubles;