im as his horse was
brought up. Then, gathering curb and snaffle, he set toe to
stirrup and swung up into his saddle.

"Ormond!" he called.

Berkley rode up and saluted.

"Ride with me," said Colonel Arran calmly.

"Sir?"

"Rein up on the left." And, turning in his saddle, he motioned
back his escort twenty paces to the rear. Then he walked his big,
bony roan forward.

"Ormond?"

"Yes, Colonel."

"You ran the guard?"

"Yes, Colonel."

"Why?"

Berkley was silent.

The Colonel turned in his saddle and scrutinised him. The lancer's
visage was imperturbable.

"Ormond," he said in a low voice, "whatever you think of
me--whatever your attitude toward me is, I would like you to
believe that I wish to be your friend."

Berkley's expression remained unchanged.

"It is my desire," said the older man, "my--very earnest--desire."

The young lancer was mute.

Arran's voice fell still lower:

"Some day--if you cared to--if you could talk over some--matters
with me, I would be very glad. Perhaps you don't entirely
understand me. Perhaps I have given you an erroneous impression
concerning--matters--which it is too late to treat differently--in
the light of riper experience--and in a knowledge born of
years--solitary and barren years----"

He bent his gray head thoughtfully, then, erect in his saddle again:

"I would like to be your friend," he said in a voice perceptibly
under control.

"Why?" asked Berkley harshly. "Is there any reason on God's earth
why I could ever forgive you?"

"No; no reason perhaps. Yet, you are wrong."

"Wrong!"

"I say so in the light of the past, Berkley. Once I also believed
that a stern, uncompromising attitude toward error was what God
required of an upright heart."

"Error! D-do you admit that?" stammered Berkley. "Are you awake
at last to the deviltry that stirred you--the damnable, misguided,
distorted conscience that twisted you into a murderer of souls? By
God, _are_ you alive to what you did to--_her_?"

Colonel Arran, upright in his saddle and white as death, rode
straight on in front of him.. Beside him, knee to knee, rode
Berkley, his features like marble, his eyes ablaze.

"I am not speaking for myself," he said between his teeth, "I am
not reproaching you, cursing you, for what you have done to me--for
the ruin you have made of life for me, excommunicating me from
every hope, outlawing me, branding me! I am thinking, now, only of
my mother.