"I wish he wouldn't look at it in that way, David," she resumed plaintively. "We--we would be so happy if you could be with us,--that is, more than you are." She was stammering, but not from embarrassment. It was in the fear of saying something that might touch his sensitive pride. "I--I love your mother," he cried intensely. "She's the best woman I've ever known--except my own mother. She's better than my aunts--yes, she is! Better than all of them. I could die for her." She clutched his arm tightly but said nothing. The words could not break through the sobs that were in her throat. Neither spoke for a matter of a hundred feet or more. Then he said to her, rather drearily: "Did you read what the papers said about the--the murder, and about me?" "No. Mother will not let me read the things about crime. But," she said quickly, "she has told me all about it since you came." "They made me out to be a vicious degenerate and an ingrate," he said. "Oh, it was horrible,--the things they said about me. Just as if they knew I was guilty. But, Christine, I am going to make them take it all back. I'm going to make them apologize some day, see if I don't." The fierce agony in his voice moved her greatly. "Oh, if I could help you!" she cried tremulously. He apparently did not hear the eager words. "It all looked so black against me," he went on, looking straight ahead unseeingly. "Perhaps I shouldn't blame them. I have thought it all out, lots of times, Christine, and I've tried to put myself in their place. Sometimes I think that if I were not myself I should certainly believe myself guilty. It _did_ point to me, every bit of it, Christine. And I am as innocent as a little baby. If--if they catch me they'll hang me!" "No, no!" she shuddered. "Doesn't it look to you as if I really had done it?" he demanded. "Tell the truth, Christine. From what you have heard, wouldn't you say it _looked_ as if I were guilty?" She hesitated, frightened, distressed. "The papers did not tell the truth, David," she said loyally. "They hunted for me with bloodhounds," he went on vaguely. "If they had caught me then, I would have been strung up and shot to pieces. You see," turning to her with a gentle note in his voice, "my grandfather was very much beloved. He was the very finest man in all the state. I have sworn to avenge his death. I swear it every night--every night, Christine. First, I'm going to clear myself of the--the hideous thing. And then!" There was a world of promise in those two words. "You have said that there is a man who can clear you," she ventured. "Who is he, David? Where is he to be found? Why doesn't he step forward and clear you?" "I--I don't know where he is. In New York, I think. He--he was sent out of the country by--by some one. Do you want to hear my side, Christine?" "Do you--care to speak of it, David?"