The woman grasped at his sympathetic tone. "Yes, yes," she answered; and turning to Elinor: "I was like you, dear--I had nobody to take care of me." "But," he protested, "it was my gun...." "Yes. That day when you talked to his daughter I was there--behind the hangings. You laid the gun behind you on a table, dropped it there behind a book." Ilingsworth placed his hand against his forehead and thought a moment. "So I did. It all comes back to me now," he returned. "I forgot even that at my trial. I have never been able to account for its disappearance." "I picked it up and kept it here," said the woman, placing her hand upon her bosom. "Some instinct made me do it. I was going to break with Wilkinson--I had made up my mind never to see him again, and I didn't know but that I would need it to threaten him, so I kept it." Her eyes grew dark with anger. "Afterwards he treated me cruelly, told something, well, something that has ruined my life. I was in the crowd that day, and,--well, you know the rest. Don't--don't tell anybody," she pleaded. "They'd kill me, kill me before I had a chance to redeem myself. I don't want to die--I can't die. I did my best for you, Mr. Ilingsworth,--after I had done my worst," she ended in a sob. Ilingsworth crossed to her side and looked down upon her kindly. "My dear child, it was you that saved me. We all know what would have happened if the Governor had never seen you. I don't want to tell anybody, and I'm sure Elinor doesn't, either; nor am I sure that I am under obligations to tell anybody. I bought the gun to kill; you killed in a fit of anger. We're in precisely the same position, aren't we? We had murder in our souls and this man Wilkinson put it there." "I want you to know," she went on falteringly, "that all the lies I've told, all the things I've done, all the weakness that's in me; he's responsible for them all. There was never anybody in my life but Peter Wilkinson." There was a long silence. Giles Ilingsworth was the first to break it. "Miss Braine, I've been trying to figure out some way so that we can all take care of each other. We all seem to need looking after. Perhaps my courage and strength will come back now that my own little girl has been returned to me. I've got to make a home for her, you see--there'll be a place there for you, too, always, if you'll come." Madeline had not expected so much kindness, and the tears began to roll down her cheeks. "May we come in?" asked a voice at the door. And Leslie Wilkinson, a new light in her face--a light that was worth while, for she had solved a weighty problem in the last half-hour--once more entered, Beekman following close at her heels.