“When I told him I saw by his face, even before he spoke, that I had been wrong.  He knew nothing whatever of it.  Well, miss, he forgave me—­forgave me wholly.  He told me that he should never mention it to a soul, and as he has never mentioned it even to you, you may see how well he has kept his word.  I wanted to leave the regiment.  I felt that I could never mix with my comrades, knowing as I did that I had tried to murder their favourite officer.  But the Major would not hear of it.  He insisted that I should stay, and, even more, he promised that as soon as I was out of hospital I should be his servant, saying that as the son of an old tenant, he would rather have me than anyone else.  You can well imagine, then, Miss Greendale, how willingly I would have given my life for him, and that when the chance came I gladly faced odds to save him.

“Before that I had come to learn who the man was.  It was a letter from my father that first gave me the clue; he mentioned that another gentleman had left the neighbourhood and gone abroad, just at the time that Major Mallett did.  He was a man who had once made me madly jealous by his attentions to Martha at a fete given to his tenants.

“The Major had the same thought, and he told me that he knew the man was a bad fellow, though he did not say why he thought so.  Then I heard that Martha had returned to die, and I learned that she had told her mother the name of her destroyer, who deserted her three months after he had taken her away.  When he came back from abroad her father and mine and some others met him at Chippenham market.  They attacked him, and I believe would have killed him, had he not ridden off.  The next day he went up to London, and a fortnight later his estate was in the market, and he never came into that part of the country again.

“I have told you all this, Miss Greendale, because I have heard that you know the man, and I thought you ought to know what sort of a man he is.  His name is Carthew.”

Bertha had grown paler and paler as the story went on, and when he ended, she sat still and silent for two or three minutes.  Then she said in a low tone: 

“Thank you, George.  You have done right in telling me this story; it is one that I ought to know.  I wonder—­” and she stopped.

“You wonder that the Major did not tell you, Miss Greendale.  I asked him, myself.  When you think it over, you will understand why he could not tell you; for he had no actual proof, save the dying girl’s words and what I had seen and heard; and his motive in telling it might have been misunderstood.  But he told me that, even at the risk of that, he should feel it his duty, if you became engaged to that villain, to tell the story to Lady Greendale.