She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been an awkward one, and should have suggested to Baptista that sooner or later the secret must leak out.  As it was, she suspected that at any rate she had not heard the last of the glazier.  
In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the other side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and the witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second time.
 
‘It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mystery—hours!’ he said with a gaze of deep confederacy which offended her pride very deeply.  ‘But thanks to a good intellect I’ve done it.  Now, ma’am, I’m not a man to tell tales, even when a tale would be so good as this.  But I’m going back to the mainland again, and a little assistance would be as rain on thirsty ground.’
 
‘I helped you two days ago,’ began Baptista.
 
‘Yes—but what was that, my good lady?  Not enough to pay my passage to Pen-zephyr.  I came over on your account, for I thought there was a mystery somewhere.  Now I must go back on my own.  Mind this—’twould be very awkward for you if your old man were to know.  He’s a queer temper, though he may be fond.’
 
She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the hush-money she paid was heavy that day.  She had, however, the satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him diminish out of sight.  But Baptista perceived that the system into which she had been led of purchasing silence thus was one fatal to her peace of mind, particularly if it had to be continued.
 
Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past.  But another week only had gone by, when, as she was pacing the Giant’s Walk (the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in the company of a fat woman carrying a bundle.
 
‘This is the lady, my dear,’ he said to his companion.  ‘This, ma’am, is my wife.  We’ve come to settle in the town for a time, if so be we can find room.’
 
‘That you won’t do,’ said she.  ‘Nobody can live here who is not privileged.’
 
‘I am privileged,’ said the glazier, ‘by my trade.’
 
Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the man’s wife.  This honest woman began to , in forcible colours, the necessity for keeping up the .
 
‘I will with my husband, ma’am,’ she said.  ‘He’s a true man if rightly managed; and I’ll beg him to consider your position.  ’Tis a very nice house you’ve got here,’ she added, glancing round, ‘and well worth a little sacrifice to keep it.’
 
The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as she had done on the previous two.  But she formed a resolve that, if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a revelation—worse though that must now be than before she had attempted to purchase silence by .  Her tormentors, never believing her capable of upon such an intention, came again; but she shut the door in their faces.  They retreated, muttering something; but she went to the back of the house, where David Heddegan was.
 
She looked at him, unconscious of all.  The case was serious; she knew that well; and all the more serious in that she liked him better now than she had done at first.  Yet, as she herself began to see, the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself.  Her name and Charles’s stood indelibly written in the registers; and though a month only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his union with her had not already been discovered by his friends.  Thus spurring herself to the , she to Heddegan.
 
‘David, come indoors.  I have something to tell you.’
 
He hardly regarded her at first.  She had discerned that during the last week or two he had seemed , as if some private business him.  She repeated her request.  He replied with a sigh, ‘Yes, certainly, mee deer.’
 
When they had reached the and shut the door she repeated, faintly, ‘David, I have something to tell you—a sort of tragedy I have .  You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better of me than you would do otherwise.’
 
‘Tragedy?’ he said, to interest.  ‘Much you can know about tragedies, mee deer, that have been in the world so short a time!’
 
She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder.  But on she went .  ‘It is about something that happened before we were married,’ she said.
 
‘Indeed!’
 
‘Not a very long time before—a short time.  And it is about a lover,’ she .
 
‘I don’t much mind that,’ he said mildly.  ‘In truth, I was in hopes ’twas more.’
 
‘In hopes!’
 
‘Well, yes.’
 
This screwed her up to the necessary effort.  ‘I met my old sweetheart.  He scorned me, me, dared me, and I went and married him.  We were coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness.  I’ve tried to keep it from you, but have found I cannot.  There—that’s the substance of it, and you can never, never forgive me, I am sure!’
 
She spoke .  But the old man, instead of turning black or blue, or her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and began to around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.
 
‘O, happy thing!  How well it falls out!’ he exclaimed, snapping his, fingers over his head.  ‘Ha-ha—the knot is cut—I see a way out of my trouble—ha-ha!’  She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still continued smiling , she said, ‘O—what do you mean!  Is it done to me?’
 
‘No—no!  O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching a poor man ever found himself in!  You see, it is this—I’ve got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never have seen my way to tell mine!’
 
‘What is yours—what is it?’ she asked, with altogether a new view of things.
 
‘Well—it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!’ said he, looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.
 
‘Not worse than mine?’
 
‘Well—that depends upon how you look at it.  Yours had to do with the past alone; and I don’t mind it.  You see, we’ve been married a mont............