She was wearing a house dress of white wool, sparsely trimmed with only a band of Persian embroidery about the sleeves and belt and around the neck, which was cut in a high square, showing her delicate throat. She looked up embarrassed as he came in, conscious that she had on no guimpe, and no lace on the sleeves, and murmured something about not being fit to be seen. But in his masculine inexperience he perceived no lack in point of the finish of her attire, though the change of her countenance instantly struck his attention. “Oh, what has happened?” he cried, solicitously. “What is the matter?” “Nothing--nothing at all,” she replied, scarcely lifting her heavily lidded eyes. “I wish everybody would quit asking me that.” “I can see that something is troubling you dreadfully,” he protested. “Won’t you let me help you? I could brush it away with one hand.” “Oh, it’s nothing,” she declared, irritably. For a few moments there was silence between them as he sat gazing at her pallid and listless face, with its downcast and dreary eyes, her languid, half-reclining attitude, her idle, nerveless hands clasped in her lap. The change in her was pathetic,--appealing. “See here, Miss Dean, trust me; if you have stolen a horse, I will hide him for you.” An unwilling smile crept to the verge of her drooping lips, but she ejaculated impatiently: “Oh, nonsense!” “I don’t want to intrude on your confidence, but,--but”--with deep gravity and a lowered voice, “have you allowed yourself to become involved in some--conspiracy against the government?” The unwelcome laugh had crept into her eyes as she lifted her heavy lids and glanced at him. “Oh, you know I haven’t!” Then the contending emotions were resolved into tears, and slowly and painfully they overflowed her sapphire eyes, coursing one by one down her white cheeks. “I should not have spoken,” he said, contritely, “I only add to your distress. Forgive me. I’d better go.” “No--no--don’t. But I can’t explain. I’ve promised--only this I know--I can’t _say how_ I know, but I _know_ that my best friend has told me a lie--a wicked, defamatory, deliberate lie--and I can’t forgive it.” “Why should you forgive it?” he asked. “It is the limit, the unforgivable.” There was a momentary pause. The tears welled up anew in the blue eyes and the white cheeks were all wet with them; however, she mopped them with her handkerchief rolled into a little ball for the purpose. “It was such a cruel lie, deliberately planned, so circumstantial,” she sobbed, “so plausible, apparently confirmed by facts. I do believe it would have deceived anybody, everybody, but me. I can’t controvert it--the circumstances are out of my scope. But I _know_--I know--I _know_ of my own accord,--I can’t say how,--but every breath I draw, every fiber in me is a witness of the truth--the eternal truth!” She burst into a tempest of sobs, and Ducie was carried beyond bounds.