ception until he could complete a defense worthy of the name. But
to no avail! He felt the end near; did not expect it so soon, however,
this night!--this very night--!"

The man paused; there was a strange gleam in the dark eyes that lingered
on her; its light was succeeded by another, a fiercer expression. For
the first time she moved, shrank back slightly. "I'm afraid I used a few
of them roughly," he said with look derisory. "There was no time for
soft talk; it was cut and run--give 'leg bail,' as the thieves say." Did
he purposely relapse into coarser words to clench home the whole
damning, detestable truth? Her fine soft lips quivered; it may be she
felt herself awakening--slowly; one hand pressed now at her breast. In
the grate the fire sank, although a few licking flames still thrust
their fiery tongues between black lumps of coal.

"But it was a close call, out there in the garden! They were before the
convict in the woods; he must needs double back to the shadow of the
house! At the bottom of a moat he looked up to a balcony overhead, small
as Juliet's---though I swear he thought it led to armory hall, not here;
had he known the truth, he would have stayed there first, and--But, as
it was, he heard voices around the corner; afar, men approaching. The
ivy at Strathorn House is almost as old as the house itself, the main
branches larger than a man's arm. It was not difficult to get here,
though I wish now--" he dared smile bitterly--"they had come on me
first."

The breeze at the window slightly shook the curtain; it waved in and
out; the tassels struck faint taps on the sill.

"But why--?" she began at length, then stopped, as if the question were
gone almost as soon as it suggested itself.

"--did I return here,--reenter Strathorn House?" he completed it for
her. "Because there seemed nothing else to do; it was probably only
temporizing with the inevitable--but one always temporizes."

She moved slowly out into the room; his face was half-averted; all the
light that came from the grate, rested now on hers. At that instant she
seemed like a shadow, beautiful, but a shadow, going toward him as
through no volition of her own. The thick texture on the floor drowned
the sound of her steps; she paused with her fingers on the gilded frame
of a settee. He did not turn, although he must have known she was near;
with his back toward her he gazed down at the soft, bright hues of the
rug, and on it a white thing, a