“Maria, you keep still,” he returned, with some show of impatience; “you know how heavy this thing has lain on my conscience ever since that youngster went to prison in my stead; and now that fate has opened a way, I am going to make it right, or as right as I can, if I die the next minute. Miss Dalton cannot stand,” he added, with considerable thoughtfulness; “let her have your chair, and you sit on the bed.” In obedience to his request, Mrs. Loker arose from the chair, but, instead of sitting upon the bed, she sank down upon the floor beside it and buried her face in the clothes with a groan. Editha gladly took the seat thus vacated for her, for she, too, was weak and trembling with excitement. “I suppose you see that I cannot live long,” John Loker said to her; and holding up his thin hand between his eyes and the light, it looked almost transparent. “You look very ill, sir,” she answered, gently. “What’s become of that young chap who was sentenced for that robbery?” he demanded, abruptly, after a moment. “He is in Europe now.” “He had true grit in him; he never winced nor showed the white feather once during the trial,” he said, in an admiring tone. “How do you know?” Editha asked, in surprise. “Tom Drake and I sat by and heard the whole thing through.” “You did?” she cried out in pain. “How could you?” Only to think of it—the real criminals so near to justice and Earle convicted instead! It was horrible! “Yes, we heard the case clear through; we heard the sentence passed upon him; and he stood up so proud, and calm, and handsome, and bore it without a whimper.” “How could you?” Editha again asked, reproachfully. “I don’t know, Miss Dalton, but folks get hardened to almost anything nowadays,” he replied, sighing. “It was cheeky, risky business for us to sit there, with some of those very diamonds and trinkets hidden away on our persons, and let another man be tried for what we had done.” Editha shuddered. “I must confess,” he went on, “that I never felt so mean in all my life as when I saw him turn white about the mouth when the jury brought in their verdict; and then, when you jumped up so brave and eager, and declared he _was not guilty_, I was so near confessing the whole thing that Tom laid a heavy hand on me and told me, with a look in his eye that meant business, that he’d kill me on the spot if I made so much as a sign. Of course, I did not dare to move after that,” he went on, with a deprecating look into the fair girl’s reproachful eyes. “But there is such a thing as turning State’s evidence. Couldn’t you have done that, and then, if this other one was more guilty than you, he would have suffered the penalty, and you would have gone free?” Editha asked eagerly.