"I gave no heed to it."
"It is fulfilled. The purposes of heaven fulfil themselves in a wonderful and unexpected way when we are least awaiting it. He is dead."
"Who is dead?"
"Lord Lamerton."
"Lord Lamerton!" Marianne Saltren started.
"How is it that? Where, Stephen, and when?"
"He is lying dead beneath the cliff."
"Good heavens! How came that about?"
"He was cast down by the hand of an avenging justice. You have been avenged."
"I—I have nothing to complain of—to have avenged on Lord Lamerton."
"Nothing of late, but you told me of the dishonour, of the wrong——"
Mrs. Saltren uttered a cry of horror.
"Stephen, for God's sake!—you do not mean?—you know, you know that I named no names."
"I knew, Marianne, to whom you referred. I knew it at once. Then I understood why you gave your son the Christian name he bears."
"Oh, Stephen, it was not that."
"Yes, Marianne, it was. It all hangs together. I saw how he, Lord Lamerton, was constrained to make much of the boy, to spend money on him, to educate and make a gentleman of him, and take him into his house."
"Stephen! Stephen! this is all a mistake."
"No, Marianne, it is no mistake. I see it all as plainly as I saw the angel flying in the midst of heaven bearing the Everlasting Gospel in his right hand, which he cast into the water before me."
"I was talking nonsense. I am—Oh, Stephen! What did you say?—he—Lord Lamerton is not dead?"
"He is dead. He is lying dead on the path."
