“It is like you; yes, I might have known!” he said, almost to himself. “But you have not counted the cost. Already the story of Miss Vanley’s visit to Harold Faradeane, the mur----”--he stopped in time, warned by her sudden pallor--“the prisoner, is on its round. Why should you make yourself a victim to scandalous tongues? Tell me why you came, and--forgive me once more--but you must not stay here another minute. Why have you come?” “I have come because I want you to tell me who did this thing!” He turned away from her, and looked through the barred window again, a wistful, anxious expression in his eyes. “I cannot do that,” he said. “You--you ask too much. You have heard the evidence----” She uttered an exclamation of impatience. “Yes; oh, yes! But what is all that to me who knows that you are innocent?” He sighed, and glanced at her sadly. “You cannot know that,” he said, gravely. “But I do know it!” she said. “Do you think if I had doubted your innocence----” “That you would have come to see me,” he finished. Her face flushed, and her eyes glowed. “No, that was not what I was going to say,” she retorted at once. “If I had thought you were guilty I should still have come; yes, if they had had to carry me here!” He uttered a low cry, and held out his arms to her, then restrained himself and sank upon the pallet. “Ah, yes!” he murmured. “I might have known! I might have known!” “Yes,” she assented. “You might have known. You should have judged me by yourself. Would you not have come to me if I had been accused of a crime--yes, even if you had thought me guilty?” He looked at her; it was sufficient answer. The look seemed to sink into her heart, and for the first time her eyes faltered in their steady gaze. “And now you will tell me who did this, will you not?” He remained silent, shading his face with his thin and already wasted hand. “You will tell me,” she persisted, and her voice floated across to him like the sweetest, softest music. She saw his hand tremble. “You will tell me, me alone, if you like. Have I not proved that I can be stanch? I can be secret. Tell me, and I will promise that I will never repeat it until you give me permission!” By leaning forward she could almost touch him, and he felt rather than saw her white hand near him. He dropped his hand from his eyes with a cry that was like a smothered groan. “I cannot!” he said, simply. She fell back a little. She was still weak, and the excitement was telling upon her. “Ah, how hard you are with me! How distrustful!” and she gave a piteous little sigh. “I thought that I had only to come to you, only to ask you, and that you would have told me--me!” He leaned his head upon his hands, and sat like one tried almost beyond endurance.