ou?"

She did not answer him, for to be met with such a question after a
plea so abject, stung her to the quick. "Do you not believe I've told
you the truth?" she asked.

"God knows; I know not what to believe," he answered.

"Do you rather trust my brothers, who have deceived you?" she said.

"So, heaven help me! has my wife, whom I have loved so dear."

At that she drew herself up. "Michael," she said, "what lie have
these men told you? Don't keep it from me. What have I done?"

"Married me, while loving him," he answered. "That's enough for me,
God pity me!"

"Do you believe that?" she said.

"Your concealments, your deceptions, your subterfuges all prove it,"
he said. "Oh, it is killing me, for it is the truth."

"So you believe that?" she said.

"If I had not written you would now be Jason's wife," he said. "And
by this light I see his imprisonment. It was you who accused him of a
design upon my life. Why? Because you knew what he had confessed to
you. For your own ends you used his oath against him, knowing he
could not deny it. And what was your purpose? To put him away. Why?
Because he was pursuing you for deserting him. But you made his vow
your excuse, and the brave lad said nothing. No, not a word; and yet
he might have dishonored you before them all. And when I wished to
sign his pardon you tried to prevent me. Was that for my sake? No,
but yours. Was it my life you thought to protect? No, but your own
secret."

Thus, in the agony of his tortured heart, the hot hard words came
from him in a torrent, but before the flood of them was spent, Greeba
stepped up to him with flashing eyes, and all the wrath in her heart
that comes of outraged love, and cried,

"It is false. It is false, I say. Send for him and he himself will
deny it. I can trust him, for he is of a noble soul. Yes, he is a man
indeed. I challenge you to send for him. Let him come here. Bring him
before me, and he shall judge between us."

"No," said Michael Sunlocks, "I will not send for him. For what _you_
have done _he_ shall suffer."

Then there was a knock at the door, and after a pause the Lagmann
entered, with his stoop and uncertain glance. "Excuse me," he said,
"will you sign the pardon now, or leave it until the morning?"

"I will not sign it at all," said Michael Sunlocks. But at the next
moment he cried: "Wait! after all it is not the man's fault, and he
shall not suffer." With that he took the paper out of the law-ma