"It is true, dear; my name has been associated with the foulest of crimes. I have been tried for murdering a woman, and that woman a near relative. I was acquitted, it is true: but simply because the evidence did not amount to what the law required. But in the sight of the world I went out guilty." "Oh, how could they think so?" Mary said, bursting into tears; "how could they have thought, Ronald, those who knew you, that you could do this?" "Many did believe it," Ronald said, "and the evidence was so strong that I almost believed it myself. However, thus it is. I am a marked man and an outcast, and must remain alone for all my life, unless God in His mercy should clear this thing up." "Not alone, Ronald, not alone," the girl cried "there, you make me say it." "You mean you would stand by my side, Mary? Thank you, my love, but I could not accept the sacrifice. I can bear my own lot, but I could not see the woman I loved pointed at as the wife of a murderer." "But no one would know," Mary began. "They would know, dear. I refused a commission the General offered me to-day, because were I to appear as an officer there are a score of men in this expedition who would know me at once; but even under my present name and my present dress I cannot escape. Only this evening, as I came here, I was taunted by a drunken soldier, who must have known me, as a murderer of women. Good Heavens! do you think I would let any woman share that? Did I go to some out-of-the-way part of the world, I might escape for years; but at last the blow would come. Had it not been for the time we passed together when death might at any moment have come to us both, had it not been that I held you in my arms during that ride, I should never have told you this, Mary, for you would have gone away to England and lived your life unhurt; but after that I could not but speak. You must have felt that I loved you, and had I not spoken, what would you have thought of me?" "I should have thought, Ronald," she said, quietly, "that you had a foolish idea that because my father had money, while you were but a trooper, you ought not to speak; and I think that I should have summoned up courage to speak first, for I knew you loved me, just as certainly as I know that I shall love you always." "I hope not, Mary," Ronald said, gravely; "it would add to the pain of my life to know that I had spoilt yours." "It will not spoil mine, Ronald; it is good to know that one is loved by a true man, and that one loves him, even if we can never come together. I would rather be single for your sake, dear, than marry any other man in the world. Won't you tell me about it all? I should like to know." "You have a right to know, Mary, if you wish it;" and drawing her to a seat, Ronald told her the story of the Curse of the Carnes, of the wild blood that flowed in his veins, of his half-engagement to his cousin, and of the circumstances of her death. Only once she stopped him.