{Illustration: “I THOUGHT YOU DEAD, AND KNEW THE FULL MEASURE OF DESPAIR."}
“Better had Cato left us both lying there to die, and gone off in the boat himself. But he revived me. I laid you down gently, and propped up your head, but never again dared to defile you with the touch of one so infamous as I.
“There still remained the other package, which I read—how you reached that island, and how you got that MS., I neither know nor seek to discover; I only know that all my spirit awaked within me as I read those words. A strange, inexplicable feeling arose. I forgot all about you and your griefs. My whole soul was fixed on the figure of that bereaved and solitary man, who thus drifted to his fate. He seemed to speak to me. A fancy, born out of frenzy, no doubt, for all that horror well-nigh drove me mad—a fancy came to me that this voice, which had come from a distance of eighteen years, had spoken to me; a wild fancy, because I was eighteen years old, that therefore I was connected with these eighteen years, filled my whole soul. I thought that this MS. was mine, and the other one yours. I read it over and over, and over yet again, till every word forced itself into my memory—till you and your sorrows sank into oblivion beside the woes of this man.
“I sat near you all that night. The palms sighed in the air. I dared not touch you. My brain whirled. I thought I heard voices out at sea, and figures appeared in the gloom. I thought I saw before me the form of Colonel Despard. He looked at me with sadness unutterable, yet with soft pity and affection, and extended his hand as though to bless me. Madder fancies than ever then rushed through my brain. But when morning came and the excitement had passed I knew that I had been delirious.
“When that morning came I went over to look at you. To my amazement, you were breathing. Your life was renewed of itself. I knelt down and praised God for this, but did not dare to touch you. I folded up the treasures, and told Cato to put them again around your neck. Then I watched you till you recovered.
“But on that night, and after reading those MSS., I seemed to have passed into another stage of being. I can say things to you now which I would not have dared to say before, and strength is given me to tell you all this before we part for evermore.
“I have awakened to infamy; for what is infamy if it be not this, to bear the name I bear? Something more than pride or vanity has been the foundation of that feeling of shame and hate with which I have always regarded it. And I have now died to my former life, and awakened to a new one.
“Louis Brandon, the agonies which may be suffered by those whom you seek to avenge I can conjecture but I wish never to hear. I pray God that I may never know what it might break my heart to learn. You must save them, you must also avenge them. You are strong, and you are implacable. When you strike your blow will be crushing.
“But I must go and bear my lot among those you strike; I will wait on among them, sharing their infamy and their fate. When your blow falls I will not turn away. I will think of those dear ones of yours who have suffered, and for their sakes will accept the blow of revenge.”
Brandon had held her hand in silence, and with a convulsive pressure during these words. As she stopped she made a faint effort to withdraw it. He would not let her. He raised it to his lips and pressed it there.