Mason turned the ring over in his hands. Under the churlish pose a guilty flush stole up his lean, eccentric face that betrayed unmistakably the friendliness and liking he had learned for the man whose plight angered and whose attitude puzzled him. "Thank you!" he said, and a sudden smile made the grim demeanour all at once soft and human. He slipped it on his finger. "Thank you! I shall be proud to keep it." He opened the door and Sevier followed him into the room adjoining. There, looking out of the window, the fingers of one thin hand in his plenteous blue-grey beard, the other behind him, stood the Governor of the State. Harry felt a thrill run through him. He knew the older man by sight, for they had met once casually in the past. Had Echo already spoken? Did the other know? "Governor," said the lawyer, "I beg to present my client, whose cause I have so poorly represented." In the deep grey, kindly eyes that were studying him attentively, Harry saw instantly, however, that there was no hidden knowledge, and his heart, that had leaped quickly, dropped into measured beating. He bowed. "My counsel did wonders," he said, "but the day of miracles is past." The reply was simple enough, but the visitor unconsciously looked his surprise. He had been prepared for something in a way unusual, for Mason had employed his intimacy to inspire something of his own keen interest in his client. Face to face with the latter, the Governor understood the lawyer's puzzlement. Here was a man who had been arrested as a house-breaker and who, caught in the very act, had shot a man down. Yet he found it suddenly credible, as Mason had declared, that the man was no ordinary burglar, was indeed, or had been, a gentleman. But there were gentlemen-thieves! He met Harry's tone with noncommittal courtesy. "You will not consider this an intrusion, I hope," he said. "My friend here was anxious that I should see you. He has been deeply concerned in your case." "It is a pleasure," Harry replied simply. "He has been put to considerable pains, in which there is very little credit, I am afraid." "His interest," the Governor went on, "as he has assured me, arises from a conviction that there is some hidden element in the affair that, if it had been brought out, might have put a different face upon it." Harry bowed but did not answer. "You have a good reason, I take it, for maintaining the silence as to yourself which my friend here finds so difficult?" "The very best," said Harry grimly. The Governor mused a moment. "You will pardon me, I am sure, if I ask you one other question. Have you ever been in prison?" "No," said Harry. "Have you committed crime--in the past?" "As the law counts it, no."