“And yet you never intended it. You did it in defence of me. You did not mean to strike thus hard. It was an accident.”
“Would that I could so feel it!” he sighed. “Nay, of course I had no evil design when my poor little wife drove me out to give you her rag of ribbon, or whatever it was; but I hated as well as despised the fellow. He had angered me with his scorn—well deserved, as now I see—of our lubberly ways. She had vexed me with her teasing commendations—out of harmless mischief, poor child. I hated him more every time you looked at him, and when I had occasion to strike him I was glad of it. There was murder in my heart, and I felt as if I were putting a rat or a weasel out of the way when I threw him down that pit. God forgive me! Then, in my madness, I so acted that in a manner I was the death of that poor young thing.”
“No, no, sir. Your mother had never thought she would live.”
“So they say; but her face comes before me in reproach. There are times when I feel myself a double murderer. I have been on the point of telling all to Mr. Fellowes, or going home to accuse myself. Only the thought of my father and mother, and of leaving such a blight on that poor baby, has withheld me; but I cannot go home to face the sight of the castle.”
“No,” said Anne, choked with tears.
“Nor is there any suspicion of the poor fellow’s fate,” he added.
“Not that I ever heard.”
“His family think him fled, as was like enough, considering the way in which they treated him,” said Charles. “Nor do I see what good it would do them to know the truth.”
“It would only be a grief and bitterness to all.”
“I hope I have repented, and that God accepts my forgiveness,” said Charles sadly. “I am banishing myself from all I love, and there is a weight on me for life; but, unless suspicion falls on others, I do not feel bound to make it worse for all by giving myself up. Yet those appearances—to you, to me, to us both! At such a moment, too, last night!”