Then he went on to tell me how Marx had met him on his return after his long absence and had taken him to see his wife, who believed him dead. He then told me how he had found her married again to Farmer Morton and implored her to come back to him. She refused, and he, in a blind fury, rushed back to where he had left Marx. He was attacked by Morton; a struggle ensued on the brink of the slate-pit. After a time my father managed to fling Morton from him and fled. That night Marx came to him and told him he had thrown Morton into the quarry, and that a man named Hart, _alias_ Francis, had witnessed the deed. My father wanted to confess, but Marx persuaded him to keep silent and paid Francis to bear the crime. "Now you know why I shrank from calling you my son, knowing that when the time came for you to be told of your parentage, I must also tell you that your father was a murderer!" "It is false!" I cried, springing up and seizing both his hands. "It was an accident. No one could call it a murder. Oh, my father, my father, that you should have suffered like this for so slight a cause!" A light leaped into his face and for a moment his wasted features and sunken eyes glowed and shone with a great, unexpected happiness. He drew me gently to him and laid his hands upon my shoulders. "Thank God for this, Philip!" he said, with trembling voice. "It is greater consolation than I ever dared hope for in this world." CHAPTER LI. DAWN. On the morrow as we walked out together, my father and I, making our way as though by common consent up towards the bare brown hills, I remembered that there were many things which I wished to say to him. "I want to ask you about Mr. Marx, father," I began. "Everything concerning him is so utterly mysterious, especially his going away so suddenly. Apart from the fear of his having used some sort of foul play towards Hart--or Francis--I can't help thinking that there is something else wrong with him. You trust him thoroughly, I suppose?" I added hesitatingly. "I have always done so," my father answered quietly. "Do you like the man himself?" I asked. My father shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "I cannot say that he has ever aroused my feelings in any way," he answered. "He has had work to do for me and has done it well and silently. I have looked upon him somewhat as an automaton, although a valuable one. And yet----" he added musingly. "Yet what?" I interrupted. "Well, sometimes I have half fancied that he was playing a part, that his interest in our work was a little strained. He gave me the idea of a man working steadily forward towards a set purpose, and I have never seemed able to reconcile that purpose with the completion of our task. His sudden absences, too--for this is not the first of them,--are strange." "I should think so," I assented. "Has he taken anything away with him this time?" I asked bluntly.