‘I did.’

‘And you found—­’

‘Nothing.’

’But how many days have passed, mother?  How many days have I been lying here?’

‘Seven.’

‘And no sign of—­of the body was to be seen?’

’None.  The wretch must have been buried for ever beneath the great mass of the fallen cliff.  I went no more.’

’Oh, mother, you should have gone every day.  Think of the frightful risk, mother.  On the very day after you ceased your visits the body might have been turned up by the tide, and she might have gone and seen it.’

The picture was too terrible.  I fell back exhausted.  I revived, however, in a somewhat calmer mood.  When my mother came into the room again, I returned at once to the subject.  I reproached her bitterly for not having gone every day.  She listened to my reproaches in entire calmness.

‘It was idle to keep repeating these visits every day,’ said she, ’and I consider that I have fully performed my part of the compact.  I expect you to fulfil yours.’

I remained silent, preparing for a deadly struggle with the only being on earth I had ever really feared.

‘I have fully kept my word, Henry,’ said she, ’and have done for you more than my duty to your father’s memory warranted me in doing.’

’But, mother, you did not do all that you promised to do; you did not prevent all risk of Winifred’s finding it.  She may find it even yet.’

’That is not likely now.  I have performed my part of the compact, and I expect you to perform yours.’

’You did not use all means to save my Winifred from worse than death—­from madness; you did not use all means to save me from dying of self-murder or of a broken heart; and the compact is broken.  Whether or not I could have kept my faith with you by breaking troth with her, it is you who have set me free.  Mother,’ I said, fiercely, ‘in such a compact it must be the letter of the bond.’

‘Mean subterfuge, unworthy of your descent,’ said my mother quietly, but with one of those looks of hers that used to frighten me once.

’No, no, mother; you have not kept the letter of the bond, and I am free.  You did not take the fullest and best means to save Winifred.  Your compact was to save her from the risk I told you of.  And, mother, mother, listen to me!’ I cried, in a state of crazy excitement now:  ’in the darkest moment of my life, when I was prostrate and helpless, you were pitiless as Pride.  Listen, mother:  Winifred Wynne shall be mine.  Not all the Aylwins that have ever eaten of wheat and fattened the worms shall prevent that.  She shall be mine.  I say, she shall be mine!’

‘The daughter of the man who desecrated my husband’s tomb!’

‘And my father’s!  That man’s daughter shall be my wife,’ I said, sitting up in bed and looking into those eyes, bright and proud, which had been wont to make all other eyes blink and quail.