f, to send it to the General Post Office to catch
the country post. So he said; and I was so grateful to him! On Saturday
morning he said they must have got it; he kept on saying so, and you don't
know how thankful I was every time! But yesterday afternoon I found
scraps of my letter in the waste-paper basket in his room; he'd never
posted it at all!"

Phillida looked shocked and distressed enough at this; her liquid eyes
filled with sympathy as they gazed upon the wretched youth.

"I'm a fool to blub about it--but--but that was the Limit!" he croaked, and
worked the poor word till it came distinctly.

"It was cruel," she allowed. "It must seem so, at any rate; it does to
me; but then I understand so little. I can't think why he's hiding you,
or why you let yourself be hidden."

"But you must know what I've done; you must guess?"

The revolver was still in his hand; he gave it a guilty glance, and she
looked from it to him without recoiling.

"Of course I guessed on Saturday." There was a studious absence of horror
in her tone. "Yet I couldn't believe it, unless it was an accident. And
if it was an accident----"

"It was one!" he choked. "It was the most absolute accident that ever
happened; he saw it; he can tell you; but he never told me till hours
afterwards. I was nearly dead with asthma; he brought me here, he was
frightfully good to me, I'm grateful enough for all that. But he should
have told me before the accident became a crime! When he did tell me I
lost my head, and begged him to keep me here, and afterwards when I came
to my senses he wouldn't let me go. I needn't remind you of that morning!
After that I promised to stay on, and I'd have kept all my promises if
only my letter had gone to my poor people!"

He told her what a guarded letter it had been, only written to let them
know he was alive, and that with the doctor's expressed approval. But now
he had learnt his lesson, and he was going to play the game. It was more
than ever the game with that poor fellow lying in prison for what he had
never done. And so the whole story would be in to-morrow's papers, with
the single exception of Dr. Baumgartner's name.

"Nothing shall make me give that," said Pocket valiantly; "on your
account, if not on his!"

Phillida encouraged his new resolution without comment on this last
assurance. She had stooped, and was picking up the unbroken negatives and
putting them back in the rack; he followe