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324 remembered. In a few moments the half-caste appeared. He showed his white teeth as he made an impish salute to Elsie, and took Abatos's rein from his master, leading him round the ledge, by a path which might have frightened any animal not accustomed to it. Elsie and Blake were alone.

He came close and stood looking at her with a curious solemn gaze in which there was an infinite regret. It stirred the girl to her heart's core. Involuntarily she put out her hands to him. He took them.

"What," he said, "you don't turn away from me? You don't hate me?"

"No," she said. And then her voice broke in a sob. "Oh, tell me what it means," she cried; "I can bear anything—if only you will make me understand."

"Yes, I will make you understand," he answered. "I said that I would on the day before you were married. I shall not wait for that. Sit here."

He led her to a ledge of rock out of sight of the entrance to the cave, and then placed himself with his back against the precipice and began.

"I have ruined my life," he said. "I began to ruin it when I was a very young man in the army, and got mixed up with a Fenian Society—I need not tell you now in what way. You may have heard from Lord Waveryng, who has recognized me, that the Blakes of Coola are a wild set, Catholics, and ardent Nationalists; the very stuff of which a Fenian is made. You may have heard, too, of Boyle O'Reilly, who was tried and sentenced for inciting his regiment to revolt, and finally sent to Western Australia, from which he got away to America. My offence was the same, but I was not tried. I had information of my projected arrest, and acting under orders I escaped. The whole thing was very cleverly arranged. I was seen to fall over a cliff. The man with me went for help. When he came back my body was not to be found, and I was supposed to have been washed out to sea. I am a good swimmer, and a boat was in waiting which took me to a hiding-place on the coast;