"Oh, incomparable woman!" he said. "Indeed I have felt the wrong I did you in marrying you, in chaining your brightness and sweetness to a doomed man like me."
"You have made me perfectly happy," she said. "I would not have changed my lot for anything else in the world. Why do you talk of doom? It is going to be happiness for both of us now that you have spoken at last."
"I have made you happy?" he asked wonderingly. "Why, if I have, it is not so bad after all."
"Did Patsy know?" she asked on a sudden thought.
"Patsy knew, though he has tried to keep the fact of his knowledge from me. He must have heard what I said. One other knew and has blackmailed me ever since. No matter how much money I gave him he came back again. I was so weary of it and so weary of the burthen I was carrying that the last time I refused him. He went away cursing and swearing that he would have me brought to justice. I felt I didn't care. I told him to do his worst. He is the husband of that poor thing you sheltered at the South lodge, one of the many your goodness has comforted. A bad fellow through and through."
"He will not harm us, Shawn. He is dead. He was found with a broken neck just by the doorway of the Admiral's tomb. He must have stepped over the edge of the Mount not knowing there was a steep fall."
"I am glad for your sake and Terry's. For my own sake I should welcome any atonement."
He went on in a low voice.
"A strange thing happened to me—when was it—the day I went hunting?"
"It is the third day since that day."