A messenger with an official document was waiting for us at the gallows. The sheriff tore it open. We had all been bearing ourselves boldly enough I dare say, but at sight of that paper our lips parched, our throats choked, and our eyes burned. Some one was to be pardoned or reprieved. But who? What a moment! How the horror of it lives in one's mind! Leisurely the sheriff read the document through, then deliberately went over it again while nine hearts stood still. Creagh found the hardihood at that moment of intense anxiety to complain of the rope about his neck. "I wish the gossoon who made this halter was to be hanged in it. 'Slife, the thing doesn't fit by a mile," he said jauntily. "Mr. Anthony Creagh pardoned, Mr. Kenneth Montagu reprieved," said the sheriff without a trace of feeling in his voice. For an instant the world swam dizzily before me. I closed my eyes, partly from faintness, partly to hide from the other poor fellows the joy that leaped to them. One by one the brave lads came up and shook hands with Creagh and me in congratulation. Their good-will took me by the throat, and I could only wring their hands in silence. On our way back to the prison Creagh turned to me with streaming eyes. "Do you know whom I have to thank for this, Kenneth?" "No. Whom?" "Antoinette Westerleigh, God bless her dear heart!" And that set me wondering. It might be that Charles and Aileen alone had won my reprieve for me, but I suspected Volney's fine hand in the matter. Whether he had stirred himself in my affairs or not, I knew that I too owed my life none the less to the leal heart of a girl. CHAPTER XVI VOLNEY'S GUEST Of all the London beaux not one had apartments more elegant than Sir Robert Volney.[3] It was one of the man's vanities to play the part of a fop, to disguise his restless force and eager brain beneath the vapid punctilios of a man of fashion. There were few suspected that his reckless gayety was but a mask to hide a weary, unsatisfied heart, and that this smiling debonair gentleman with the biting wit was in truth the least happy of men. Long he had played his chosen rôle. Often he doubted whether the game were worth the candle, but he knew that he would play it to the end, and since he had so elected would bear himself so that all men should mark him. If life were not what the boy Robert Volney had conceived it; if failure were inevitable and even the fruit of achievement bitter; if his nature and its enveloping circumstance had proven more strong than his dim, fast-fading, boyish ideals, at least he could cross the stage gracefully and bow himself off with a jest. So much he owed himself and so much he would pay.