Dan raised his eyes to hers. “Miss Emory, the only time I remember to have seen my father until he came here a few weeks ago was through the grating of his cell door. My mother took me there as a little boy. When she died I came West, where no one knew me. I had already learned that, because of him, I was somehow judged and condemned, too. It has always been hanging over me. I have always feared exposure. I suppose I can hush it up after a while, but there will always be some one to tell it to whoever will listen. It is no longer a secret.” “Was it fair to your friends, Mr. Oakley, that it was a secret?” “I can't see what business it was of theirs. It's nothing I have done, and, anyhow, I have never had any friends until now I cared especially about.” “Oh!” and Miss Emory lowered her eyes. So long as he was merely determined and stupid he was safe, but should he become sentimental it might be embarrassing for them both. “You have seen my father. Do you think from what you can judge from appearances that he would kill a man in cold blood? It was only after years of insult that it came to that, and then the other man was the aggressor. What my father did he did in self-defence, but I am pretty sure you were not told this.” He was swayed by a sense of duty towards his father, and a desire to vindicate him--he was so passive and enduring. The intimacy of their relation had begotten warmth and sympathy. They had been drawn nearer and nearer each other. The clannishness of his blood and race asserted itself. It was a point of honor with him to stand up for his friends, and to stand up for his father most of all. Could he, he would have ground his heel into Ryder's face for his part in circulating the garbled version of the old convict's history. Some one should suffer as he had been made to suffer. “Of course, Mr. Ryder did not know what you have told me,” Constance said, hastily. She could not have told why, but she had the uneasy feeling that Griff required a champion, that he was responsible. “Then you did hear it from Mr. Ryder?”