"Yes, though I did not know it till afterwards, not till just before my father died. Alo's father was my father; and her mother had been honestly married to my father by a missionary; though for my sake it had never been made known. You remember, also, that you carried on your relations with Alo secretly, and my father never suspected it was you."
"Your sister!" Roscoe was white and sick.
"Yes. And now you understand my reason for wishing you ill, and for hating you to the end."
"Yes," he said despairingly, "I see."
She was determined to preserve before him the outer coldness of her nature to the last.
"Let us reckon together," she said. "I helped to—in fact, I saved your life at Apia. You helped to save my life at the Devil's Slide. That is balanced. You did me—the honour to say that you loved me once. Well, one of my race loved you. That is balanced also. My sister's death came through you. There is no balance to that. What shall balance Alo's death? . . . I leave you to think that over. It is worth thinking about. I shall keep your secret, too. Kilby does not know you. I doubt that he ever saw you, though, as I said, he followed you with the natives that night in Apia. He was to come to see me to-day. I think I intended to tell him all, and shift—the duty—of punishment on his shoulders, which I do not doubt he would fulfil. But he shall not know. Do not ask why. I have changed my mind, that is all. But still the account remains a long one. You will have your lifetime to reckon with it, free from any interference on my part; for, if I can help it, we shall never meet again in this world—never. . . . And now, good-bye."
Without a gesture of farewell she turned and left him standing there, in misery and bitterness, but in a thankfulness too, more for Ruth's sake than his own. He raised his arms with a despairing motion, then let them drop heavily to his side. . . .
And then two strong hands caught his throat, a body pressed hard against him, and he was borne backward—backward—to the cliff!