"Does Miss Dalzell know this?" inquired Miles, as if one thought, rushing with the many through his brain, found an outlet.
"The ruin, but not the man," answered Skaife.
"God bless her, then!" burst from the suffering man's lips, and with that blessing the blood flowed once more through his frame. It was as a gush of molten lead, forcing its way outwards, burning as it rushed; his face became dark and lurid, and his flashing eyes looked wildly forward.
"I have not words to thank you with, for all you have done," he cried in a hoarse, unnatural voice, grasping Skaife's hand. "We shall soon, very soon, meet again;" and with one bound he cleared the stile, and almost like thought stood before the terrified Mary Burns, who had sunk in a chair when they departed, almost fainting, from fear of the result of their conversation; and now she felt how well grounded that terror had been when Miles strode into the cottage. She knew his ungovernable passion when excited by injury or villainy in another--in her terror she rose before him: "Miles!" she almost screamed.
"Not Miles!" he cried, "but the spirit of his mother returned to condemn you; an angel who breathed on you from her own pure lip, who strove to instil her purity into your polluted soul--Devil's child!" and he grasped her trembling arm--he was pitiless, scarcely human, in his rage then--as he continued, "to hear such counsels, to breathe the atmosphere of such a presence, and turn to your hell again! Could not even her dying blessing, which fell united on both of us, cleanse you? Could you find no fitter object for your impure love than him, the man who has branded her memory with so foul a stain, who has driven her son, almost your brother, forth, a beggar, and nameless! If there's one drop of human blood in you, woman, shed it in tears for your baseness! Oh, heavens!" and he looked fixedly forward like a man in a trance, "give me power to call down on this creature the reward of her foul work!"
"Do not curse me, Miles," she shrieked, dropping on her knees and clasping them, "have mercy on me--have mercy on me!"
It was a fearful picture on which the curate at that moment looked unseen through the open door; _they_, in their agony, and the poor old mother totally unconscious of all, some happy thoughts evidently crossing her mind, for she was smiling, and endeavouring to rub her paralyzed hands together at the joyous dream. Skaife involuntarily drew back, and leaned against the door-post to keep away other witnesses, should the voices within attract notice in the adjoining cottages. Miles's hand was passed painfully over his face and brow--he had flung his hat aside.