"Don't say that, Deirdre!"
"It's the truth," the girl said fiercely. "That night of the fixes he saw the branch falling. It would have hit you if he had not put up his arm, and it came down on him—on his face—all the red-hot embers...."
Mrs. Cameron uttered a low cry.
"And now at the end of his days you took this last scrap of freedom from him. But I wouldn't have it. I knew that the time had come for somebody to do something for him."
There was a few moments' silence.
"Only after all"—a weary bitterness surged in her voice—"it was no good. McNab was too clever for me. He trapped me—and sold father all the same—and Steve, poor old Stevie, too. M'Laughlin took him down to the Port this afternoon. I heard him crying like a baby. When I asked McNab why he had broken his word to me, he said"—a little sick laughter struggled from her—"that, blind as father was, he knew he'd have to reckon with him for having taken me, if he ever came back to the Wirree."
She sank back in the chair, shivering and sobbing.
Mrs. Cameron leant towards her.
"Don't touch me!" Deirdre shrank from her. "I haven't told you all yet. McNab locked me in a room when he knew that I knew what he'd done. It was when he came to me there and called me his wife—I killed him."
Mrs. Cameron fell back from her.