r hand, and afterward I shall tell Sir Oswald
that, hearing a noise in the library, and knowing money was kept there,
I hastened down, and finding a thief, I fired, not knowing who it
was--and you, being dead, cannot contradict me.'

"'You dare not be so wicked!' I cried.

"'I dare anything--I am a desperate man. I will do it, and the whole
world will believe me; they will hold you a thief, but they will believe
me honest.'

"And, Vane, I knew that what he said was true; I knew that if I chose
death I should die in vain--that I should be branded as a thief, who had
been shot in the very act of stealing.

"'I will give you two minutes,' he said, 'and then, unless you take an
oath not to betray me, I will fire.'

"I was willing to lose my life, Vane," she continued, "but I could not
bear that all the world should brand me as a thief--I could not bear
that a Darrell should be reckoned among the lowest of criminals. I vow
to you it was no coward fear for my life, no weak dread of death that
forced the oath from my lips, but it was a shrinking from being found
dead there with Sir Oswald's money in my hand--a shrinking from the
thought that they would come to look upon my face and say to each other,
'Who would have thought, with all her pride, that she was a thief?' It
was that word 'thief,' burning my brain, that conquered.

"'You have one minute more,' said the hissing whisper, 'and then, unless
you take the oath----'

"'I will take it,' I replied; 'I do so, not to save my life, but my fair
name.'

"'It is well for you,' he returned; and then he forced me to kneel,
while he dictated to me the words of an oath so binding and so fast that
I dared not break it.

"Shuddering, sick at heart, wishing I had risked all and cried out for
help, I repeated it, and then he laid the revolver down.

"'You will not break that oath,' he said. 'The Darrells invariably keep
their word.'

"Then, coolly as though I had not been present, he put the bank-notes
into his pocket, and turned to me with a sneer.

"'You will wonder how I managed this,' he said. 'I am a clever man,
although you may not believe it. I drugged Sir Oswald's wine, and while
he slept soundly I took the keys from under his pillow. I will put them
back again. You seem so horrified that you had better accompany me and
see that I do no harm to the old man.'

"He put away the box and extinguished the light. As we stood together in
the dense gloom, I felt his brea