He did not speak for some moments. Again from the depths, but more distant, came the to-whoo of the owl. Mr. Jordan removed his hands from his brow and laid them flat at his side on the rock.
‘I was but a country gentleman, with humble pursuits—a silent man, who did not care for society—and I knew that I could not compare with the witty attractive men of the world. I knew that Morwell was a solitary place, and that there were few neighbours. I believed that Eve was unhappy here: I thought she was pining to go back to the merry life she had led with the players. I thought she was weary of me, and I was jealous—jealous and suspicious. I watched her, and when I found that she was meeting someone in secret here on this rock, and that she tried to hide from me especially that she was doing this, then I went mad—mad with disappointed love, mad with jealousy. I knew she intended to run away from me.’ He made a sign with his hand that he could say no more.
Jasper was greatly moved. At length the mystery was being revealed. The signs of insanity in the old man had disappeared. He spoke with emotion, as was natural, but not irrationally. The fact of being able to tell what had long been consuming his mind relieved it, and perhaps the blood he had lost reduced the fever which had produced hallucination.
Jasper said in as quiet a voice as he could command, ‘My sister loved you and her child, and had no mind to leave you. She was grateful to you for your kindness to her. Unfortunately her early life was not a happy one. My father treated her with harshness and lack of sympathy. He drove her, by his treatment, from home. Now, Mr. Jordan, I can well believe that in a fit of jealousy and unreasoning passion you drove my poor sister away from Morwell—you were not legally married, and could do so. God forgive you! She did not desert you: you expelled her. Now I desire to know what became of her. Whither did she go? If she be still alive, I must find her.’
‘She is not alive,’ said Mr. Jordan.
Then a great horror came over Jasper, and he shrank away. ‘You did not drive her in a fit of desperation to—to self-destruction?’
Mr. Jordan’s earnest eyes were fixed on the dark night sky. He muttered—the words were hardly audible—Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine: Domine, quis sustinebit?
Jasper did not catch what he said, and thinking it was something addressed to him, he stooped over Mr. Jordan and said, ‘What became of her? How did she die? Where is she buried?’
The old man raised himself on one arm and tried to sit up, and looked at Jasper with quivering lips; then held his arm over the rock as, pointing to the abyss, ‘Here!’ he whispered, and fell back on the moss.
Jasper saw that he had again become unconscious. He feared lest life—or reason—should desert him before he had told the whole story.