"It isn't necessary to swear anything," answered Maitland serenely. "I know this child. And I believe I'm beginning to find out this man." "Thank you, Uncle Robert," said Enid gratefully, coming nearer to him as she spoke. "No man could have done more for me than Mr. Newbold has, and no one could have been more considerate of me. As for you," she turned on, Armstrong, who now slowly got to his feet, "your insinuations against me are on a par with your charges against the dead woman, beneath contempt." "What did he say about her?" asked Old Kirkby. "You know my story?" asked Newbold. "Yes." "He said that my wife had been unfaithful to me--with him--and that he had refused to take her back." "And it was true," snarled Armstrong. It was all Maitland could do to check Newbold's rush, but in the end it was old Kirkby who most effectively interposed. "That's a damned lie," he said quietly with his usual drawling voice. "You can say so," laughed Armstrong, "but that doesn't alter the facts." "An' I can prove it," answered the old man triumphantly. It was coming, the secret that she had tried to conceal was about to be revealed, thought Enid. She made a movement toward the old man. She opened her mouth to bid him be silent and then stopped. It would be useless she knew. The determination was no longer hers. The direction of affairs had been withdrawn from her. After all it was better that the unloving wife should be proved faithful, even if her husband's cherished memory of her love for him had to be destroyed thereby. Helpless she listened knowing full well what the old frontiersman's next word would be. "Prove it!" mocked Armstrong. "How?" "By your own hand, out of your own mouth, you dog," thundered old Kirkby. "Miss Enid, w'ere are them letters I give you?" "I--I--" faltered the girl, but there was no escape from the keen glance of the old man, her hand went to the bosom of her tunic. "Letters!" exclaimed Armstrong. "What letters?" "These," answered Enid Maitland, holding up the packet. Armstrong reached for them but Kirkby again interposed. "No, you don't," he said dryly. "Them ain't for your eyes yit. Mr. Newbold, I found them letters on the little shelf w'ere your wife first struck w'en she fell over onto the butte w'ere she died. I figgered out her dress was tore open there an' them letters she was carryin' fell out an' lodged there. We had ropes an' we went down over the rocks that way. I went first an' I picked 'em up. I never told nobody about it an' I never showed 'em to a single human bein' until I give 'em to Miss Maitland at the camp." "Why not?" asked Newbold, taking the letters. "There wasn't no good tellin' nobody then, jest fer the sake o' stirrin' up trouble." "But why did you give them to her at last?"