"I don't understand.... In any case you are too late.... But why do you want to kill me? What I did, I did for the sake of friendship. I don't doubt you would--do the same for a woman in trouble--if--if you loved her." Jim passed his hand across his brow. It was bewildering, baffling! "God, ain't you got a soul?" he gasped. "Can you lie there within a few minutes of death and take a pride in what you did? Damn the fate that got you plugged before I could get my hands on you. I suffered hell out there, these two months, hunting you all over the mountains, and now ..." D'Arcy surveyed the distraught speaker in bewilderment. He had said that Angela had been brought back from the _Silas P. Young_. Then it wasn't that escape that had sent him up here in bitter, revengeful mood. He began to touch the outer edge of the truth. "I'm cold," he muttered. "And it grows dark.... Where are you?... I must know more, ... tell me what troubles you.... Do you think there was anything more in that business but friendship? Speak!" "I know!" "Ah--I see.... So that's it.... See here, friend.... I'm going out ... right out, where perhaps there's a tribunal.... I've done bad things, but not that.... I'm glad you came ... in time. And you thought that of me--O God!" Jim recoiled with blanched cheeks before these words, ringing as they did with truth. He tried to get a clear grip of the position, but his brain reeled under the force of this astounding denouement. D'Arcy was speaking again--so faint he could scarcely hear. "And to think that of--her! Man--man--and you look as though you love her.... She's all that's good and pure, though her pride is--great, too great,... and she's willful and unrelenting.... Go back and put this right. Don't let this terrible unjust suspicion remain...." "But--she told me that," gasped Jim. Despite the pain occasioned by the movement, D'Arcy dragged himself higher on the pillow and gazed at Jim in horror. "She--she told you--that!" Jim wished he had bitten his tongue off before those words had been uttered. Was ever physical blow more cruel than this--to inflict insult and guilt of so despicable a nature upon a perfectly innocent man! He snatched at the nerveless hand on the bed and held it. "I'm sorry," he groaned. "I didn't know--I didn't think she would frame up a dirty lie like that." D'Arcy suddenly smiled wistfully. "And where is she now?" "I sent her away." "You sent her--well, perhaps it was best," he said. "You've got to forget that story. Circumstances excuse many things." "They don't excuse that." "I think they do.... All the blame is not with her. That she should give utterance to such a lie proves to what extremes she was forced. She tried by every other means to escape--and failed. You held her, not by love, but by brute strength." "You don't understand," retorted Jim. "I bought her. She knows that. I didn't know I was buying her, but she knew all the time----" "You--can't buy a woman's soul."