"Safe!" she answered. "Does any danger threaten my husband?"
"Yes, while I am here--while I live."
"You--you would not hurt him?"
She remembered the look of admiration she had seen in this man's eyes, and rose and recoiled in horror.
"Give him my message. Repeat all I have said, except this: 'I am not doing it for his sake, or my own sake, but for yours. Good-bye.' Tell no one else of my being here; no one but him--not a soul."
In a moment he was gone.
The next thing she heard of him was that he had drowned himself in the hideous Puffing Hole.
At first she had been inclined to think Fahey's words referred solely to his feelings towards her; but when she learned he had drowned himself she doubted this. Against what was her husband secure? To say he was secure against Fahey's admiration for her would be the height of gratuitous absurdity. She cared no more for the young man than for any misty figure in a fable. He must be mad; yes, that was it. That supposition made all simple--explained everything.
It was night when her husband returned. She, remembering Fahey's caution, and bearing in mind that walls have ears, went to the gate of the grounds, and there met Davenport. He had heard of Fahey's fate. It was dark--pitch dark--when she gave him the message with which she had been charged.
"Poor Michael!" her husband said--"poor Michael! Unfortunate fellow!"