"It is not that. Maybe that makes him the more ready to suspect you--" And then she blurted it out, a little defiantly, laying her hand softly upon his arm. "He thinks, he has thought all along, that you killed Arthur!" He stared at her gravely, the shock of such a charge too great to be appreciated to its fullest extent in a moment. "He thinks that I killed Arthur?" he repeated incredulously. And then, bitterly, "My God, Wanda. This is too horrible." "Listen, Wayne. We must talk this over calmly and see what is to be done. You see papa has disliked you because he hated your father. Oh, it's unjust but it's so human! He has believed all the hard things men have said of you and they have said many. He knows that the day before Arthur was killed you and he quarrelled. Then you went away, you were gone a year and he didn't think that you would ever come back. You came back, you made me love you. Believing as he did, papa did the natural thing when he refused to let you come again." "He had no right to believe it," he cried angrily. "I shall tell him so. I shall make him tell me of a single thread of the wildest circumstantial evidence to point to this hideous thing!" "It will do no good," she said simply. "Nothing in the world can be done unless--oh, I have thought so much about this, Wayne--unless the real murderer can be found. Surely if you offered rewards, if you hired detectives, if you talked with MacKelvey--" "Wanda," he interrupted, his voice at once stern and troubled. "Do you remember when you gave me the revolver that morning? I didn't explain to you, even you. I couldn't. If I went away and stayed so long, if I didn't remain here doing the thing you suggest, offering rewards, hiring detectives to hunt his murderer down, couldn't you guess why? You found the revolver that killed him." "Wayne!" "And the day Arthur and I rode into El Toyon I gave the thing to him. It was his own then. He shot himself. God knows why. I should have spoken then, I should have told MacKelvey, your father, every one. But I hated to, I hated the thought of it, of having people know that Arthur had committed suicide, of having men talk of it. I thought that there would be investigations, of course, but that they would die down. I knew that no man would be accused; it was my secret. I would keep it for Arthur's sake." He broke off sharply, moved strongly by his own words that conjured up something he had striven manfully to shut out of his mind, strongly moving the girl who heard him. She watched him with piteous, sad eyes while he strode up and down, back and forth in the candle lighted cave. Suddenly he stopped, exclaiming bitterly, "Your father thinks this of me. Who else? Does half the countryside believe me a murderer? Does Garth believe it? Does Hume? Does your mother?"