breath.

"I came back--riding," she said. "I came back because--because I had
to."

"Why?"

"Because of the--disaster out there."

"You knew?"

Kate nodded.

"Pretty well everything. That is all I can tell you, dear." Kate
crossed the room, and stood beside her sister's chair. She laid one
gentle hand upon her shoulder. "Don't ask me any more about that.
It--it is like--like searing my very soul with red-hot irons. That
must be my secret, and you must forgive me for keeping it from you.
Ask me anything else, and I will tell you--but leave that alone. It
can do nobody any good."

Helen leaned her head on one side till her soft cheek rested
caressingly upon her sister's hand.

"Forgive me, Kate," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'll never
mention it again--never."

For some moments neither spoke. But Kate was waiting. She knew there
were other questions that must be asked and answered.

"Was it because of the felling of that tree you went away?" Helen
asked presently.

Kate shook her head.

"No."

Helen started up.

"I knew it wasn't. Oh, Kate, I knew it wasn't. It was so unlike you. I
know why you went. Listen," she went on, almost excitedly. "You always
defended Charlie. You pretended to believe him straight. You--you
stuck to him through thick and thin. You flouted every charge made
against him. It was because of him you went away. You went to try and
help him--save him. All the time you knew he was against the law.
That's why you went. Oh, Kate, I knew it--I knew it."

Helen was looking up into her sister's shadowed face with loyal
enthusiasm shining in her admiring eyes.

Kate gravely shook her head.

"I believed every word I said of Charlie. As God is my witness I
believed it. And I tell you now, Helen, that as long as I live my
heart will be bowed down beneath a terrible weight of grief and
remorse at the death of a brave, honest, and loyal gentleman. I have
no more to say. I never shall have--on the subject. I love you, Helen,
and shall always love you. My one thought in life now is your welfare.
If you love me, dear, then leave those things. Leave them as part of a
cruel, evil, shadowed time, which must be put behind us. All I want
you to ever remember of it--when you are the happy wife of your Big
Brother Bill--is that Charlie was all we believed him, in spite of
all appearances, and he died the noblest, the most heroic death that
man ever died."

Kate bent down and tenderly ki