“I intended to give myself up,” he heard himself explaining to his captor. “I'm guilty. I did it. Day after day I've told myself that I would go back and own it, but I put it off.” “That's the old tale.” The officer seemed to laugh out of the darkness. “Your sort are always intending to do right, but never get to it. They are going to hang you back there in the mountains, young man, hang you till you are dead, dead, dead! Ethel Mayfield's there--she is the same beautiful girl--but she will be ashamed to acknowledge she ever knew you. She used to pray for you--silly young thing!--and this is the answer. You'll die like a dog, young man, with a rope around your neck.” Paul waked slowly; his face was wet with cold perspiration. At first he fancied he was in a prison cell lying on a narrow cot. Such queer sounds were beating into his consciousness--the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the gladsome twittering of birds! Then he seemed to be a boy again, lying in his bed in the farm-house. His father was calling him to get up. The pigs were in the potato-field. But how could Ralph Rundel call to him, for surely he was dead? Yes, he was dead, and Jeff Warren--Jeff Warren--Why, Hoag had said that he had--recovered. Recovered! Paul opened his eyes and looked about him in a bewildered way. The room, in the gray light which streamed in at the windows, was unfamiliar. He sat up on the edge of his bed and tried to collect his thoughts; then he rose to his feet and sprang to the window. “Thank God, thank God!” he cried, as he stared out at the widening landscape and the truth gradually fastened itself upon him. “Thank God, I'm free--free--free!” He told himself that he could not possibly go to sleep again, and hurriedly and excitedly he began to put on his clothes.