Then he told her, standing there face to face with her. As he proceeded with his story, he could give no guess as to what effect it was having upon her, for she made no sign, but, from the seat into which she had sunk, gazed fixedly into his face. Once she shuddered slightly, and drew her dress nearer to her when he confessed that he had refused to part from him in peace; and, when she had read the letter that he had written on the night of his death, she wept silently for a few moments. It had taken long in the telling, and the twilight of the summer night had come before he finished and she had learnt everything. "That is what I came to tell you, Ida. Speak to me, and say that you forgive me for having kept it from your knowledge when last we met!" "You said an hour ago," she replied, taking no heed of his prayer for forgiveness, "that dreams were idle fantasies of the brain. What if mine was such? What, if after all, I have seen the form of the man who murdered him, have spoken to him and let him kiss me, and have not recognised him?" "Ida!" he said, "do you say this to me, to the man to whom you have plighted your love and faith? Do you mean that you suspect me of being my brother's murderer?" "You did nothing," she answered, "to find out his murderer; you would have done nothing had that Will not been discovered." "I obeyed his behest," he said, "and what I did was done also through my love of you." Again she paused before she spoke, and then she said: "It is time that you should go now, it is time that there should be no more love spoken of between us. But, if a time should ever come when it will be fitting for me to hear you speak of love to me once more----" "Yes?" "It will be when you can come to me and say that his murderer is brought to justice." "And until that time shall come, you cast me off?" "If you take it in that light,--yes." "I have sworn," he said, and she could not but notice the deep intensity of his voice, "upon his grave that my life shall be devoted to avenging him, and no power on earth shall stop me if I can but see my way to find the man who killed him. Even though I had still another brother, whom I had loved all my life, and he had done this deed, I would track him and bring him to punishment. I swear it before God--swear that I would not spare him! And my earnest and heartfelt prayer is that the day may arrive when, as you and I desire, I may be able to come and tell you that he is brought to justice." "Ah! yes."