man I--I--sentenced to death--this morning."

II

"Evie!"

Mrs. Wayne went to the door, but on Ford's assurance that her child had
nothing to fear from him, she paused with her hand on the knob to look in
curiosity at this wild young man, whose doom lent him a kind of
fascination. Again, for a minute, all three were silent in the excess of
their surprise. Wayne himself sat rigid, gazing up at the new-comer with
strained eyes blurred with partial blindness. Though slightly built and
delicate, he was not physically timid; and as the seconds went by he was
able to form an idea as to what had happened. He himself, in view of the
tumultuous sympathy displayed by hunters and lumber-jacks with the man who
passed for their boon companion, had advised Ford's removal from the
pretty toy prison of the county-town to the stronger one at Plattsville.
It was clear that the prisoner had been helped to escape, either before
the change had been effected or while it was taking place. There was
nothing surprising in that; the astonishing thing was that the fugitive
should have found his way to this house above all others. Mrs. Wayne
seemed to think so too, for it was she who spoke first, in a tone which
she tried to make peremptory, in spite of its tremor of fear.

"What did you come here for?"

Ford looked at her for the first time--in a blankness not without a dull
element of pleasure. It was at least two or three years since he had seen
anything so dainty--not, in fact, since his own mother died. At all times
his mind worked slowly, so that he found nothing to reply till she
repeated her question with a show of increased severity.

"I came here for protection," he said then.

His hesitation and bewildered air imparted assurance to his still
astonished hosts.

"Isn't it an odd place in which to look for that?" Wayne asked, in an
excitement, he strove to subdue.

The question was the stimulus Ford needed in order to get his wits into
play.

"No," he replied, slowly; "I've a right to protection from the man who
sentenced me to death for a crime of which he knows me innocent."

Wayne concealed a start by smoothing the newspaper over his crossed knees,
but he was unable to keep a shade of thickness out of his voice as he
answered:

"You had a fair trial. You were found guilty. You have had the benefit of
all the resources allowed by the law. You have no right to say I know you
to be innocent."

Wholly spent, Ford