"Poor Nellie. She deserved a better fate. I wish I had never crossed her path."
There were voices in the distance, and not caring to be found there, he knelt by the pile of earth, and burying his face in the dust, said aloud:
"I wish that I were dead and happy as you are, little Snow Drop," then leaving the inclosure, he mounted his horse, and rode rapidly off, just as Walter and Jessie came up on the opposite side.
"That was William Bellenger," Jessie cried. "I thought so when he passed the house, and I wanted so much to see him here by Ellen's grave."
"William Bellenger," Walter repeated. "Do you know why he was here?"
"Yes, I do," Jessie answered, "and I wanted to reproach him with it. Walter, William Bellenger is a villain!
"Sit down with me," she continued, "here, beside your mother's grave, and Nellie's, and listen while I repeat to you what Nellie told me just before she died."
He obeyed, and in a voice of mingled sorrow and resentment, Jessie told him of the falsehood which had been imposed upon the gentle girl lying there so near them.
It would be impossible to describe Walter's anger and disgust, as he listened to the story of Ellen's wrongs.
"The wretch! He killed her!" he exclaimed, "killed her through love for him, and her unselfish devotion to you."