"Yes, I did. Why not? He wished it. We all wished it. It is much better so," and she pointed at the dead man on the bed. "It is better for him ... and for all of us. I only did what he told me." He stood staring at her in blankest amazement, and found himself unconsciously searching her face and eyes for signs of aberration. Her face was wan-white still, but had lost the broken, beaten look it had worn of late. The shadow-ringed eyes were perfectly steady and had in them a curious wistful look, like that of a child expecting and deprecating a scolding. "Do you know what it means?" he asked at last, in a hoarse whisper. "It means release for us all," she said quickly, and then more quickly still, "Oh, Wulfrey, I couldn't help thinking--hoping that--sometime--not for a long time, of course,--but sometime--when we have forgotten all this--you might--you and I might----" "Stop!" he said sternly. "Were you thinking that when you did this?" and he pointed to the bed. "Not then--at least--no, I think not. I just did what he told me to do. But when I saw he was really dead----" He stopped her again with a gesture, and broke out with brusque vehemence, "Is it possible you don't understand what you have done? Do you know what the law will call it?"---- "The law? No one needs to know anything about it but you and me----" "The law will want to know how this man died----" "But you can tell them all that is necessary. It was Blackbird falling at the old road that killed him. If he hadn't broken his back he wouldn't have been lying here, and if he hadn't----" "He might have lived for twenty years," he said, breaking her off short again with an abrupt gesture. "The law requires of me the exact truth. Do you understand you are asking me to swear to a lie? I would not do it to save my own life." "He took it himself----" "He could not get it himself, and the law will hold you responsible for supplying it." "Oh--Wulfrey! ... You won't let them hang me?"--and he saw that at last she understood clearly enough the peril in which she stood if the whole truth of the matter became known. Hang her they most certainly would if the facts got out, or coop her for life in a mad-house, which would be infinitely worse than hanging. And the thought of either dreadful ending to her spoiled life was very terrible to him. She stood before him, little more than a girl still, woful, wistful, with terror now in her white face and shadowy eyes, and he remembered their bygone days together. "Go back to your room, and rest, if you can. And say nothing of all this to anyone. You understand?--not a word to anyone. I must think what can be done," he said, and she turned and went without a word. VII Wulfrey Dale thought hard and deep. He must save her if he could. How? For a moment--inevitably--he weighed in his mind the question of his own honour versus this woman's life.