“I am afraid it is true,” said Kate sorrowfully. “He is an old friend of Ned’s, and Ned would never tell me how he came to meet him in Silverette, or what Mr. Brant was doing there.” Dorothy’s heart was too full for any kind of utterance. The open disgrace brought upon the family by her brother; the terrible tragedy for which she felt that her letters to Brant were partly responsible; the dreadful fate that awaited the slayer of James Harding, and Isabel’s apparent indifference thereto--these were all past speech. And when there came a dim suspicion of a more horrible thing--a bare suggestion that Brant had shielded the real murderer by giving himself up in his stead--she burst into tears and ran from the breakfast room. In the meantime William Langford was having an exceedingly painful quarter of an hour in the library. Much to her dissatisfaction, Mrs. Langford had not been permitted to accompany her son in the capacity of special pleader, and for once in his life the young man was compelled to face his father’s wrath unsupported, while his mother awaited the outcome with what fortitude she could summon in the deserted drawing-room. “Tell me the whole story, and tell me the truth,” was the judge’s stern command when his son appeared before him. William did neither. From long practice in presenting his own case at home in the most favourable light the young man was blankly unable to tell a straightforward story in plain words, though for this once his will to do it was good. But what he did tell put his father in possession of a fairly consistent series of facts. On the day before the tragedy the boy had met Harding and had become his guest at a hotel. There had been liquor and cards, he admitted--so much of the former that he had been afraid to come home. That was all. “And how did you come to be in this place last night?” “Harding took me there. He said it was a gentlemen’s club.” “Didn’t you know it was a gambling house?” The boy hung his head. “I--I guessed it was--after we got in.” “Well, go on.” “We went upstairs and began to play cards. Harding won everything I had, and then--” He stopped, but the lash of his father’s command struck him smartly. “Tell it all. What then?” “Then he got me to put my promise to get some papers away from Mr. Brant up against all the money on the table. I thought he was just joking, y’know, and I did it--and he won.” The judge groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. “It wasn’t enough for you to be a knave; you must be a fool as well. Go on.” “Then he said I must pay; that if I didn’t, he’d give me away for what I did the night before.” “And what was that?” Again the boy hung his head and went dumb. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” “Which is another way of saying that you were too drunk to know what you were about. God help us!” said the judge, and he got up to walk to the window. When he could trust himself to speak he began again: