The Governor put up his hand. "We will have the truth!" he said sternly. He sat erect in his chair, his bushy brows drawn together, his compelling eyes holding Echo's. Slowly he turned his grey head toward Craig. "It was Miss Allen," said Craig. His smouldering gaze had fastened on her with a savage joy. The drama was rushing now to its inevitable _dénouement_. The crisis had come to Echo with fateful suddenness. From the porch--whither she had stolen, full of excitement, to listen to the bulletins from the east room that spelled victory for the cause of Harry Sevier--she had glimpsed through the French window that gathering in the library--the striped masked figure standing as before his judges, Craig with his bandaged temple, the silent listeners. The mask and the convict garb recalled that terrible midnight at Craig's house and the later episode at the jail, blent in a shuddering composite, even as the significance of the scene came home to her with a sudden horrifying clarity. It was true then; Craig had returned recovered! The escaped convict had been retaken, and he had come forward to repeat his mistaken testimony! In her confusion of mind she did not reason: it did not occur to her that here was no tribunal of justice. The suggestion was overpowering: she only knew that within that room men sat again in judgment upon him with whose fate her own peace of mind was so entangled. And she knew the truth! In the swift surprise the shame and horror of the publicity which had wrestled with her pain of conscience during the weeks succeeding her visit to the jail and the baleful certitude it had brought, rolled over her anew with the anguished dread of Harry Sevier's contempt. But there was no wavering: the fight had been fought out once for all, and she had waited for Craig's revelation with outer calmness, though with her blood stilling to an icy current in her veins. Two things had come to her at the same instant: Craig did not intend to involve her, and the convict knew who she was. As she leaned against the sill listening, the meaning of that obstinate refusal to answer had thrilled her. He, like Craig, had known her, then, all along. Yet he had not betrayed her, nor would he betray her even now! The thought had spurred her resolve and sent her forward into the room with that confession on her lips. She came forward slowly, with what seemed a pathetic weariness. Her face was without colour and there were bruised shadows beneath her eyes, but above them her amber hair was like sunbeams in a mesh of gold. "Governor Eveland," she said, "you have known me all my life. I do not think you have ever had cause to doubt my word." "There is no need to remind me of that, my child," he answered, gravely. "Neither I nor any one who knows you, would believe you spoke anything but the truth."