"I hate the sea! I have never looked at it since the war started without seeing the many, many dead sailor boys at the bottom, staring up with their dead eyes through the weight of waters for a God of Justice in the heavens, and looking in vain." She turned her eyes from the sea, and looked at him passionately. "You do not care about the sea, either. You are only trying to put me at my ease--to help me say what I want to say. It is kind of you, but it is not necessary. I feel I can trust you--I must trust you. I am only a girl and there is nobody else in the world I dare trust. It is about--_him_. Have you seen him? Have you spoken to him? Did he speak about me?" "I saw him only at the trial," replied Colwyn, with his ready comprehension. "I had no opportunity of speaking to him alone." "I read about the trial in the paper," she went on. "They said that he was mad in order to try and save him, but he is not mad--he was too good and kind to be mad. Oh, why did he kill Mr. Glenthorpe? Will they kill him for that? You are clever, can you not save him? I have come to beg you to save him. Ever since they took him away I have seen his eyes wherever I go, looking at me reproachfully, as though calling upon me to save him. Last night, while I was in my grandmother's room, I thought I saw him standing there, and heard his voice, just as he used to speak. And in the night I woke up and thought I heard him whisper, 'Peggy, it is better to tell the truth.' This morning I could endure it no longer, and I came across to find you." "You have known him before, then?" "Yes." The girl met Colwyn's grave glance with clear, unafraid eyes. "I did not tell you before, not because I was afraid to trust you, for I liked you from the first, but I was afraid that if I told you all you would think him guilty, and not try to help him. And when you spoke to me on the marshes that day you believed he might be innocent." "How do you know that?" "I heard you say so to that police officer--Superintendent Galloway--after dinner the first night you were at Flegne. I was passing the bar parlour when you and he were talking about the murder, and I heard you say that you thought somebody else might have done it. The day after, when you saw me on the marshes, I was frightened to tell you the truth, because I thought if you knew it you might go away and not try to save him." "You had better tell the whole truth to me now. Nothing you can now say will make it worse for Penreath, and it may be possible to help him. When did you first meet him?"