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242 be! See here, sir"—and her tone dropped again to a whisper, as she came quite close to him, and laid one hand almost caressingly on his sleeve—"there's no sympathy in my heart for them that would have done you harm, no, nor for the man that murdered that poor coastguardsman when first you came hither! I love not such folks, sir, whatever you may think of me! And see, sir, to prove to you how earnestly I do grieve for the ill they have done, I am ready to give you up the murderer of the coastguardsman into your hand, ay, for I know who 'twas that did it, and I can put you in the way of evidence to prove it too!"

Tregenna started and flushed. He had not the least doubt that this woman could indeed do as she offered to do, that she could deliver the murderer into the hands of justice. But he shrank from accepting her suggestion, not only with instinctive mistrust of a woman who was ready to deliver up her own lover, but with not unnatural suspicion that she might be a traitress to both sides.

So he got off the balustrade, and said coldly—

"I thank you, Mistress, for your offer: but I