"What is missing out of your life?" he asked. "I can hardly tell you." "My friend's life is overcast by a great calamity that befell his family some years ago." "What was it?" she asked, and a slight shiver passed through her. "His brother was accused of murder, of shooting the husband of the woman he had fallen in love with. He was condemned and reprieved; he is at Dartmoor now. That is enough to make his brother's life unhappy; it killed the Admiral, their father." "How shocking!" she said. "I never thought of it before, but, strange to say, the man's name was Elroy. It is your name," he said. She laughed uneasily; she could not tell him now. "I hope you do not connect me with the lady in question?" "No, of course not. How absurd! But still it is strange--the name is uncommon," he said. "I suppose you never saw his brother at the prison?" "I did--I wish I had not." "Did he look very ill, broken down?" "He was a terrible wreck. He suffered awful agony, of mind more than body. I never saw such a change in a man in my life. When I knew Hector Woodridge he was a fine, well set up, handsome man, in the army, a soldier's career before him. The breakdown was complete; it made me suffer to look at him. I never went again and I do not think he wanted it. If ever a man was living in hell upon earth he was; the wonder is it did not kill him." "How terrible!" she said. "I wonder if the woman suffers? He did it on her account. I do not believe he is guilty--I am certain he is not. His brother believes in his innocence, so does Captain Bruce, and all his friends. I believe it is the knowledge that he is innocent sustains him in his awful life; he told me he hoped one day to prove his innocence, but that his lips were sealed, he could not speak. I told him that was foolish, that it was due to himself to speak, but he shook his head and said, 'Impossible!'" "Is it a very terrible place at Dartmoor?" "I suppose it is like all such prisons; but think what it must be for an innocent man to be caged there with a lot of desperate criminals, the scum of the earth. What must it be for such a man as Hector Woodridge, cultured, refined, an army man, well-bred--and on the top of it all the knowledge that the disgrace killed his father. It would drive me mad." "And me too," she said. "You say he is there still?" "Yes; there is no chance of his escaping. I wish he could." "A prisoner escaped when I was at Torquay. I saw it in the local paper," she said. "So did I; the fellow had a terrible fight with a bloodhound and strangled it. A desperate man has desperate strength," he said. "I met an old boatman named Brack there; he told me the man must be dead." "No doubt; fell down a disused mine, or drowned himself, poor devil. I don't wonder at it," he said. "I wonder how the woman feels about it?" she said in a low voice. "She must suffer, her conscience must trouble her, in a way her life must be as hard to bear as his."