"I daresay not, seeing my mother kept silence from the time of her arrest. But I remember that on the night my father was murdered at the Turnpike House I flew at him with a knife. I forgot all that took place after that, except that I was in the room and saw his dead body lying under the open window--the open window," he repeated, quietly, and with significance. "Do not forget that, Mr. Cass." "What do you mean?" "I mean that someone else might have killed him. The window was open. Why should it have been open unless the true murderer had gained entrance by it, and had fled through it when his deed was accomplished? I do not believe that my mother is guilty, in spite of her silence. She has some reason for holding her tongue." "I can't think what the reason can be," replied Mr. Cass, wearily, leaning his head on his hands. "For love of you she would have chosen to remain free; yet when a word--according to you--might have saved her, she held her tongue and risked the gallows." For the first time Neil Webster shuddered. "How was it she escaped that?" he asked, in a low voice. "The case was so extraordinary that a petition to the Home Secretary was got up, and he commuted the sentence to one of imprisonment for life. Yet I must tell you the general opinion was that she was guilty. She was pitied for all that when the story of her husband's brutality came out in the evidence." "And my father?" said Neil, impatiently raising his head. "Tell me more." Mr. Cass hesitated a moment. "Jenner deserved his fate. He treated his wife abominably; she had been left to starve. After having been put to many shifts----" Webster raised his hand with a cry of pain. "I remember; don't!" he said. "My poor mother! I can recall in some degree--that is, so far as a child could have understood--our terrible life in London. Then we came down here." "Yes, I did what I could for your mother, for I had always respected her very much. But she was a difficult person to manage; and she refused my help on the ground that it was charity." "So it was," Neil said between his teeth. "And I have lived on your charity ever since!" "My dear lad"--Mr. Cass laid his hand on the young man's arm--"don't be so thin-skinned. Whatever I have done, you have more than repaid me by your success. And if you feel that you cannot bring yourself to accept the money I have spent upon your education, why, then, pay me a sum to be agreed upon between us. Surely that will set your mind at rest." Neil shook his head. "The obligation remains the same," he said, gloomily. "I shall ever remain grateful to you, and I will repay the money. I know that whosoever else may be a scoundrel--and the world is full of them--you, at least, are a good man." Mr. Cass winced as Neil held out his hand. But the feeling passed away in a moment, and he did not refuse the proffer of friendship.