"Cyril," he said solemnly, "I'm as innocent of this charge as you or Granville Kelmscott here. I never even heard one whisper of it before. I don't know what it means. I don't know who they want. Till this moment I thought Montague Nevitt was still alive in England." And as he said it, Granville Kelmscott, too, saw he was speaking the truth. Impossible as he found it in his own mind to reconcile those strange words with all that Guy had said to him in the wilds of Namaqua land, he couldn't look him in the face without seeing at a glance how profound and unexpected was this sudden surprise to him. He was right in saying, "I'm as innocent of this charge as you or Granville Kelmscott." But the inspector only smiled a cynical smile, and answered calmly-- "That's for the jury to decide. We shall hear more of this then. You'll be tried at the assizes. Meanwhile, the less said, the sooner mended." CHAPTER XLI. WHAT JUDGE? For many days, meanwhile, Sir Gilbert had hovered between life and death, and Elma had watched his illness daily with profound and absorbing interest. For in her deep, intuitive way she felt certain to herself that their one chance now lay in Sir Gilbert's own sense of remorse and repentance. She didn't yet know, to be sure--what Sir Gilbert himself knew--that if he recovered he would, in all probability, have to sit in trial on another man for the crime he had himself committed. But she did feel this,--that Sir Gilbert would surely never stand by and let an innocent man die for his own transgression. IF he recovered, that was to say. But perhaps he would not recover. Perhaps his life would flicker out by degrees in the midst of his delirium, and he would go to his grave unconfessed and unforgiven! Perhaps even, for his wife's and daughter's sake, he would shrink from revealing what Elma felt to be the truth, and would rest content to die, leaving Guy Waring to clear himself at the trial, as best he might, from this hateful accusation. It would be unjust. It would be criminal. Yet Sir Gilbert might do it.