heard, that
you don't."

"Oh, but you are wrong," said Lady Alice. "I love him with all my heart,
and I thank you deeply--deeply--for saving him."

"That ought to be some payment," said Francis Trent, with his wan, wild
smile. "And I don't suppose they'll be very hard on me, as I did not
know what I was doing. You'll speak a word to that effect, won't you,
doctor?"

"I will indeed. But it would have been better for you as well as for
others if truth had been told from the beginning," said Kenyon.

"It can't be helped now. Is there anything else I can do? You must have
my statement taken down. And Mary, my girl, you'll have to make your
confession too."

"Oh, Francis, Francis!" she moaned. "Not against you, my dear--not
against you!"

"Yes, against me," said Francis steadily. "And let us finish with the
formalities as quickly as may be, doctor, as long as my head's clear. I
killed my brother Oliver--that you must make known as soon as you can.
Not for malice, poor chap, nor yet for money--though he had cheated me
many a time--but because I was mad--mad. And I am mad now--mad though
you do not know it--stark, staring mad!"

And his dark eyes glared at them so strangely that Lady Alice cried out
and had to be led into another room, for it was the light of madness
indeed that shone from beneath his sunken brows.

It was while she sat alone for a minute or two while the gentlemen were
talking in another room, that Mary Trent came creeping to her, with
folded hands and furtive mien.

"Oh, my lady, my lady, forgive me," she said, sobbing fretfully as she
spoke. "I thought but of my own--I did not think of you. Nor of Miss
Lesley, though I did love her--yes, I did, and tried my best to save her
from that wicked man. Mr. Brooke will tell you what I mean, ma'am. And
tell him, if you will be so good, that I was frightened into taking back
the stories I had told him about Oliver--but they were _all true_.
Everyone of 'em was true. And that I beg he'll forgive me; for a better
and a kinder gentleman I never see, nor one that loved poor people more.
And Miss Lesley was just like him--but it was my husband, and I thought
he'd be hanged for it, and what could I do?"

And then, while Lady Alice still hesitated between pity and a feeling of
revolt at pity for a woman who had sworn falsely against her dearly
beloved husband, Caspar Brooke, a cry was heard from the bedroom, and
Mary turned and fled back to the scene of her du