s "_Veritas praevalebit_," which means, "Truth will
prevail." I shall set your mind entirely at rest regarding your son.
Your son at this moment occupies a humble, if honourable, position in
the great house from which you came, and he hopes in time worthily to
fill his father's shoes, as you have filled the shoes of your father.
You are not a rich man, but a servant. Your son never was in America,
and never will go there. It is your master's son, the heir to great
English estates, who became the Wyoming Ed of the Western prison. Even
from what you say, I do not in the least doubt he was justly
convicted, and you may go back to your master and tell him so. You
came here to conceal the shameful secret of a wealthy and noble house;
you may return knowing that secret has been revealed, and that the
circumstances in which you so solemnly bound me to secrecy never
existed. Sir, that is the penalty of lying.'

The old man's contempt for me had been something to be felt, so
palpable was it. The armour of icy reserve had been so complete that
actually I had expected to see him rise with undiminished hauteur, and
leave the room, disdaining further parley with one who had insulted
him. Doubtless that is the way in which his master would have acted,
but even in the underling I was unprepared for the instantaneous
crumbling of this monument of pomp and pride. A few moments after I
began to speak in terms as severe as his own, his trembling hands
grasped the arms of the chair in which he sat, and his ever-widening
eyes, which came to regard me with something like superstitious dread
as I went on, showed me I had launched my random arrow straight at the
bull's-eye of fact. His face grew mottled and green rather than pale.
When at last I accused him of lying, he arose slowly, shaking like a
man with a palsy, but, unable to support himself erect, sank
helplessly back into his chair again. His head fell forward to the
table before him, and he sobbed aloud.

'God help me!' he cried, 'it is not my own secret I am trying to
guard.'

I sprang to the door, and turned the key in the lock so that by no
chance might we be interrupted; then, going to the sideboard, I poured
him out a liqueur glass full of the finest Cognac ever imported from
south of the Loire, and tapping him on the shoulder, said brusquely:--

'Here, drink this. The case is no worse than it was half an hour ago.
I shall not betray the secret.'

He tossed off the brandy, a