said--I----" Virginia's heart
gave so sudden and violent a bound that she stammered, and grew red and
white under the revealing moonlight. She was thinking of the
portrait--seeing it again, looking into the eyes which had seemed to
speak. Dead! Executed as a murderer! The thought was horrible; it stifled
her.

"No, he is not dead," answered Roger gravely; "at least, if he is I
haven't heard of it. But--if he still exists--one can't call it
living--he must have wished a hundred times a day to die and be out of
his misery. Perhaps death has come to him. It might, and I not have
known; for from out of the pit which has engulfed him, seldom an echo
reaches the world above."

"Roger, you frighten me! What do you mean?" the girl exclaimed.

"Forgive me, child. I forgot for a moment, and was thinking aloud. I
don't often forget you, do I? I said to-day that Max Dalahaide was dead
in life. That is true. Family influence, the tremendous eloquence of a
man engaged to plead his cause, the fact that Max insisted upon his
innocence, while the evidence was entirely circumstantial, saved him from
the guillotine, which I believe he would have preferred, in his
desperation. He was sent to that Hades upon earth, New Caledonia, a
prisoner for life."

"But--he was _English_!"

"No. His parents had been English, but he, having been born in France,
was a French subject. He had even served his time in the army. Naturally
he was amenable to French law; and he is buried alive in Noumea, the most
terrible prison in the world."

"And he was innocent!"

Roger, who had been gazing out over the sea, turned a surprised look upon
Virginia.

"No! He was not innocent," he said quickly. "Everything proved his guilt.
It is impossible that he should have been innocent."

"His sister believed in him."

"Yes, his sister. What does that prove? The father thought him guilty,
and killed himself. As for the mother--who knows? At all events, she
died--broken-hearted. Every penny the family possessed, after their great
losses, went for Maxime's defense; but, except that his life was saved,
it was in vain."

"You knew him--he was your friend--yet you believed in his guilt?"

"I hardly knew him well enough to call myself a friend. I admired him,
certainly Max Dalahaide was the handsomest, wittiest, most fascinating
fellow I ever met. Neither man nor woman could resist him, if he set out
to conquer. Loria and he were like brothers; yet Loria thought