The Queen's Cup

by G. A. Henty

"Before that I had come to learn who the man was. It was a letter from my father that first gave me the clue; he mentioned that another gentleman had left the neighbourhood and gone abroad, just at the time that Major Mallett did. He was a man who had once made me madly jealous by his attentions to Martha at a fete given to his tenants.

"The Major had the same thought, and he told me that he knew the man was a bad fellow, though he did not say why he thought so. Then I heard that Martha had returned to die, and I learned that she had told her mother the name of her destroyer, who deserted her three months after he had taken her away. When he came back from abroad her father and mine and some others met him at Chippenham market. They attacked him, and I believe would have killed him, had he not ridden off. The next day he went up to London, and a fortnight later his estate was in the market, and he never came into that part of the country again.

"I have told you all this, Miss Greendale, because I have heard that you know the man, and I thought you ought to know what sort of a man he is. His name is Carthew."

Bertha had grown paler and paler as the story went on, and when he ended, she sat still and silent for two or three minutes. Then she said in a low tone:

"Thank you, George. You have done right in telling me this story; it is one that I ought to know. I wonder—" and she stopped.

"You wonder that the Major did not tell you, Miss Greendale. I asked him, myself. When you think it over, you will understand why he could not tell you; for he had no actual proof, save the dying girl's words and what I had seen and heard; and his motive in telling it might have been misunderstood. But he told me that, even at the risk of that, he should feel it his duty, if you became engaged to that villain, to tell the story to Lady Greendale.

"But if he found it hard to speak, there seemed to me no reason why I shouldn't. Except my father and mother and he, no one knows that I was well nigh a murderer. And though he has so generously forgiven me, and I have in a small way tried to show my gratitude to him, it was still painful to me to have to tell the story to anyone else. But I felt that I ought to do it—not for his sake, because he has told me that what I had looked for and what he had so hoped for is not to be—but because I thought that you ought not to be allowed to sacrifice your life to such a man; and partly, too, because I wished to spare my dear master the pain of telling the story, and of perhaps being misunderstood."

"Thank you, George," she said, quietly. "You have done quite right in telling—"

At this moment some voices were heard at the other end of the garden.

"I will be going at once," George said, seizing the opportunity of getting away; and turning, he walked down the garden and left the house.