“But I am dying now; _he_ can’t harm me, and the _law_ can’t touch me, and I’ve outwitted him at last; his meanness is half that’s made me want to show him up, and if you will only bring him to justice, you’ll do the world a favor, besides clearing that fine young chap, who was as brave as a lion, from disgrace; for I tell you Tom Drake is one of the worst robbers in the United States.” He paused, and Editha thought he had got through. She hoped he had, for she felt she could not sit there much longer; it was as much as she could do to keep in her chair and feel that that fearful face, with those fierce, restless black eyes, was looking down upon her, watching her every movement. But the invalid resumed, after resting a moment: “We, Tom and me, went to court every day while the youngster was being tried for the robbery we had committed; and we thought it fine fun that the scent had been so completely turned from us to him. It was as clear a case of circumstantial evidence as I ever heard of, and many’s the joke we’ve cracked at that poor fellow’s expense. But, miss, I must confess I’ve had mighty uncomfortable dreams over it since lying here sick, and thinking of him locked in behind those bolts and bars for three long years, and he as innocent as a baby all the time, and we abroad doing more of the devil’s work.” He really appeared deeply moved, and Editha knew that he must have suffered on account of it. “I’ve been a bad man,” he continued with a sigh of regret, “and I suppose I’ll get my deserts where I’m going; but I know I shall deserve it all, whatever it may be. “Have you written everything just as I’ve told you?” he asked again, anxiously, turning his sunken eyes upon the closely written sheets in her lap. “Yes; I have everything correct, I think,” Editha answered, longing to know if that dreadful face was still glaring upon them, yet not daring to look. “Then give me the pencil and hold the paper while I sign it. I want this business off my mind; then perhaps I’ll feel easier,” he said, eagerly, and holding out his thin hand for the pencil. Editha placed it between his fingers, and then holding her books with the paper laid on them so that he could write, he laboriously scrawled beneath what she had already written: “I swear that this is the living truth. JOHN LOKER.” “Thank you,” Editha said, with a breath of relief, hastily folding the paper, and wondering where and how she should hide it from those fierce, restless eyes above her. She ventured to flash one swift glance out of the corners of her eyes toward the window, and, to her intense relief, she found that there was nothing there. Tom Drake had disappeared as silently and as suddenly as he had come. But her heart instinctively told her that that was not the last of him. Perhaps he was even now hiding somewhere near, waiting to pounce upon her when she should go out of that wretched place, and wrest that precious confession from her.