“My father is dead, Nest.”
Nest caught her breath with a sharp gasp.
“God forgive him!” said she, thinking on her babe.
“God forgive me!” said Owen.
“You did not—” Nest stopped.
“Yes, I did. Now you know it. It was my doom. How could I help it? The devil helped me—he placed the stone so that my father fell. I jumped into the water to save him. I did, indeed, Nest. I was nearly drowned myself. But he was dead—dead—killed by the fall!”
“Then he is safe at the bottom of the sea?” said Ellis, with hungry eagerness.
“No, he is not; he lies in my boat,” said Owen, shivering a little, more at the thought of his last glimpse at his father’s face than from cold.
“Oh, husband, change your wet clothes!” pleaded Nest, to whom the death of the old man was simply a horror with which she had nothing to do, while her husband’s discomfort was a present trouble.
While she helped him to take off the wet garments which he would never have had energy enough to remove of himself, Ellis was busy preparing food, and mixing a great tumbler of spirits and hot water. He stood over the unfortunate young man and compelled him to eat and drink, and made Nest, too, taste some mouthfuls—all the while planning in his own mind how best to conceal what had been done, and who had done it; not altogether without a certain feeling of vulgar triumph in the reflection that Nest, as she stood there, carelessly dressed, dishevelled in her grief, was in reality the mistress of Bodowen, than which Ellis Pritchard had never seen a grander house, though he believed such might exist.