It was well for Olive that her father was the one upon whom it devolved to soften the terrible weight of the blow. But though she listened with livid face and ashy lips, she was calmer than he had dared to hope. Roland was alive and unharmed--that was relief. But in prison--in a cold, hard cell--and on a charge of murder! It was frightful. He a murderer! No, she would never believe that. Some absurd mistake had been made, and he would soon be released. Why, it was too ridiculous, and she almost laughed aloud at the bare idea. Then Memory, like a mocking fiend, started up to dash even that consolation from her grasp. For it suddenly carried her back over the lapse of years to the chance meeting with her lover on the beach, that lowering afternoon when the tide overtook them. His words, spoken then, now darted in characters of fire before her mental gaze. "_The trammelled imagination of a canting world reads crime into what is no crime at all_." He had been urging a secret barrier existing between them--one that she, in common with society at large, would recognise as irrefragable. And she, mistaking the drift of the plea, had answered bravely that nothing would cause her to shrink from him. They had talked at cross-purposes. Now--the whole mystery stood explained. By the light of this _denouement_ the scales fell from her eyes--even the intervening events were clear as daylight to her now. But could she now answer as bravely as then upon the lone seashore? Every whit. Looking up, she met her father's eyes steadily and without speaking. And the flash of meaning in that glance revealed to him that she was no longer a blind believer in her husband's innocence. Looking back in after years to this moment, the old priest was conscious of a distinct satisfaction at the time in making the discovery. It would save all danger of cross-purposes, though no word on the certainty could be exchanged between them. "Oh, father! _you_ don't believe in--in this accusation!" "I don't believe that Roland is a murderer," was the answer; straight, unhesitating, and in tones of conviction. "Men have been arrested on suspicion before to-day and honourably acquitted. Keep your wholesome, loving belief in him firm and unshaken, Olive my pet, and be strong for his sake." The old man's voice shook as he strove to comfort this his best-loved child, but he mastered himself. Her faith in the accused man must be kept up at all hazards, nothing must dim that bright, pure flame. It had been his safeguard hitherto; it must not fail him now. "I will indeed be strong. And now--I must go to him at once." "Not to-night, darling. Indeed, it will be impossible. To-morrow, we can procure the necessary order, the first thing. His first thought was of you--and--again I say it--you must be brave and strong for his sake."