ave sent you to prison."

"I believe I did the right thing," he said. "If I killed your father,
prison was my proper punishment. But I can't remember. There was no
other clue, no other guide to judgment. So the law said I killed him,
and--he had evidently not drawn his sword. It was clear he was killed
defenceless."

"You killed a defenceless man!" Her voice was sharp with agony. "That
was mentioned at the trial--but I did not believe it then--in that long
ago." She trembled to her feet from the bench where she was sitting.
"And I do not believe it now--no, on my soul, I do not."

"But it makes no difference, you see. I was condemned for killing your
father, and the world knows that Erris Boyne was your father, and
here Lord Mallow, the governor, knows it; and there is no chance of
friendship between you and me. Since the day he was found dead in the
room, there was no hope for our friendship, for anything at all between
us that I had wished to be there. You dare not be friends with me--"

Her face suddenly suffused and she held herself upright with an effort.
She was about to say, "I dare, Dyck--I do dare!" but he stopped her with
a reproving gesture.

"No, no, you dare not, and I would not let you if you would. I am an
ex-convict. They say I killed your father, and the way to understanding
between us is closed."

She made a protesting gesture. "Closed! Closed!--But is it closed? No,
no, some one else killed him, not you. You couldn't have done it.
You would have fought him--fought him as you did Lord Mallow, and in
fighting you might have killed him, but your sword never let out his
life when he was defenceless--never."

A look of intense relief, almost of happiness, came to Dyck's face.
"That is like you, Sheila, but it does not cure the trouble. You and I
are as far apart as noon and midnight. The law has said the only thing
that can be said upon it."

She sank down again upon the wooden bench. "Oh, how mad you were, not
to tell the whole truth long ago! You would not have been condemned, and
then--"

She paused overcome, and his self-control almost deserted him. With
strong feeling he burst out: "And then, we might have come together?
No, your mother--your friends, myself, could not have let that be. See,
Sheila, I will tell you the whole truth now--aye, the whole absolute
truth. I have loved you since the first day I saw you on the hills when
you and I rescued Christopher Dogan. Not a day has passed sin