With some tossing Arsdale had slept on without awaking fully enough to be conscious of his surroundings. Now, however, Donaldson became aware that the fellow's brain was clearing. He watched the process with some interest. It was an hour later before the man began to realize that he was in a strange room, and that another was in the room with him. It was evident that he was trying hard, and yet with fear of whither the road might lead him, to trace himself back. He had singled out Donaldson for some time, observing him through half-closed eyes, before he ventured to speak. "Where am I?" he finally faltered huskily. "In my charge." "Who are you?" "One Donaldson." "I never heard of you." "That is not improbable." Arsdale reflected upon this for some time before he gained courage to proceed further. "I 'm going to get up," he announced, at the end of some five minutes. "No, you 're not. You are going to stay right where you are." "What right have you to keep me here?" he demanded. "The right of being stronger than you." Arsdale struggled feebly to his elbow, but Donaldson pushed him back with a pressure that would not have made a child waver. He stood beside him wondering just how much the dulled brain was able to grasp. The long night had left him with little sympathy. The more he had thought of that blow, the greater the aversion he felt towards Arsdale. If the boy had n't struck her he would feel some pity for him, but that blow given in the dark against a defenseless woman--the one woman who had been faithful and kind to him--that was too much. It had raised dark thoughts there in the night. Arsdale, his pupils contracted to a pin-point, stared back at him. Yet his questions proved that he was now possessed of a certain amount of intelligence. If he was able to realize that he was in a strange place, he might be able to realize some other things that Donaldson was determined he _should_. "You are n't very clear-headed yet, but can you understand what I am saying to you now?" Arsdale nodded weakly. "Do you remember anything of what you did yesterday?" he demanded, in a vibrant voice that engraved each word upon the sluggish brain. "No," answered the man quailing. "No? Then I'll tell you. You came back to the house and you struck your sister." "No! No! Not that! I didn't do that." Donaldson responded to a new hope. This seemed to prove that the conscience of the man was not dead. It came to him as a relief. He was relentless, not out of hate, but because so much depended upon establishing the fact that the fellow still had a soul. "Yes. You did," he repeated, his fingers unconsciously closing into his palms. "You struck her down." "Good God!" "Think of that a while and then I 'll tell you more." "Is she hurt, is she badly hurt?"