And there and then, on the spur of the moment, he leaped up a height which he had not even sighted a second before. He had, by the sacrifice of his prospects, saved her from the legal consequences of her act. That was irrevocably past and done with, and he must pay the price. But she was paying a double due--remorse for what she herself had done, bitter sorrow at the ruinous price he had paid for her safety. He had saved her life. Why not save her the rest?--her peace of mind, all her possibilities of future happiness. In any case it would make no difference to him. For her it might mean all the difference between darkness and light for the rest of her life. And she looked pitifully helpless and hopeless as she lay there sobbing convulsively in the big chair. He saw the possibility in a flash and gripped it. "Hang you? Why on earth should anyone want to hang you?" he asked, with all the natural surprise he could put into it. "You know,"--in a scared whisper. "Because I got him the poison----" "Come, come now! Let us have no more of that. I was hoping a good night's rest would have ridded you of that bad dream." "Dream?" and she looked up at him wildly. "Ah, if I could only believe it was a dream!" and she shook her head forlornly. "Why, of course it was a dream. You were over-wrought with it all, and your mind took the bit in its teeth and ran away with you. What you've got to do now is to try to forget all about it." "Forget!" "How I came to make such a mistake I cannot imagine, but when I got home I saw at once that there was an extra dose gone out of my strychnine bottle instead of out of the distilled water, and that explained it at once." "_You_? ... _You_ made the mistake?" she looked up at him again, eagerly, with warped face and knitted brows, and a wavering flutter of hope in her eyes.... "You are only saying it to comfort me." "I'm trying to show you how foolish it is to allow yourself to be ridden by this strange notion you've got into your head." "Strange notion? ... Did he not beg me to get him that stuff he used for the rats? And did I not get it for him? And he took it. And then----" she shivered at the remembrance of what followed when her husband took the draught. "All in that horrible dream when your mind was running away with you----" "And did you not come and tell me they would hang me unless I kept my mouth shut? And I lay all that dreadful night with the rope round my neck----" "All in your dream. I'm sorry. It must have been terribly real to you." "A dream?" and she stared wistfully into the fire, hex hands clasping and unclasping nervously. "If I could believe it!" "You must believe what I tell you, and forget all about it and recover yourself." "And you?" she said after a pause. "I shall be all right. Don't trouble your head about me." "If I did not do it," she said, after another long silent gazing into the fire, "then there would be no need for you to hate me----"