"Be silent!" commanded the Governor. "This man is in my hands, not in yours!" The warning was heavy and vengeful, and it held now all the electric energy of the man that had made him famous through a long career of criminal practice before his Governorship days, and that now, unleashed, dominated the room. Before it Craig whitened with a surge of anger that sent a keen probe of pain through his temple. He sat back, breathing hard, his great fingers working on the arms of his chair. The Governor was leaning forward now, his hand on the table. "If I recollect--and I think I do, as certain aspects of the case interested me at the time--there was a witness to the shooting beside the men who were assumed to be your comrades. There was a woman there." "She did not see my face." "But she might have seen the face of the shooter. Why did she not see yours?" "I wore a mask." "Is not a mask, in itself, a badge of criminal intent?" "It was not mine. One of the men dropped it when they ran." "If, being innocent," the Governor went on, "you put on the mask, the only presumption is that you did not wish the woman to recognise you. Therefore, she knew. Did you speak to her?" There was no reply. "If you spoke to her, it was when the man who had fired the shot was in flight. Your words to her, verified by herself--if she were reputable--would be evidence that you did not do the shooting. Why then, did you not call her as a witness?" The long French-window had swung again ajar and the cooling evening breeze rustled the paper that lay upon the table. From the far road there came a muffled, long-drawn cheer, that trailed across the tense silence of the room. "If the significant fact which could be brought forward at your trial was the identity of this missing witness; if her testimony would show that the law had erred--if it might operate to establish your innocence--would not she herself justify you in revealing it?" The silence, a longer one this time, remained unbroken. "Do you still refuse to tell the name of the woman?" "I do." The Governor leaned to the table and picked up the pen. But in the instant there was a quick step behind them. All turned. Echo stood framed in the window--a figure in filmy white, against which a single rose glowed like a hot ruby. "I was that woman, Governor Eveland," she said clearly. CHAPTER XLVIII THE HEART OF A WOMAN For an instant there was a blank silence. The Judge sat as if stunned, one hand across his lips, the other clenched on his knee. Harry's breath had caught in his throat; he stood taken aback and confounded, his thought shocked apart and dispersed as a street explosion dissipates a crowd of pedestrians. He forgot all else, was conscious only of the deep fire of her eyes and the white surge of her breast, only that he loved her and that she stood on the brink of ruin--she whose name was unspotted from the world! An irrepressible exclamation burst from his lips.