"His secret will be kept. The question was not who committed the act for which you suffered, but whether you were clearly, incontestably, innocent of the act, and, in pleading guilty, did but sublimely bear the penalty of another. There will be no new trial--there are none who would prosecute. I bring back to you the Queen's free pardon under the Great Seal. I should explain to you that this form of the royal grace is so rarely given that it needed all the strength and affecting circumstance of your peculiar case to justify the Home Secretary in listening, not only to the interest I could bring to bear in your favour, but to his own humane inclinations. The pardon under the Great Seal differs from an ordinary pardon. It purges the blood from the taint of felony--it remits all the civil disabilities which the mere expiry of a penal sentence does not remove. In short, as applicable to your case, it becomes virtually a complete and formal attestation of your innocence. Alban Morley will take care to apprise those of your old friends who may yet survive, of that revocation of unjust obloquy, which this royal deed implies--Alban Morley, who would turn his back on the highest noble in Britain if but guilty of some jockey trick on the turf! Live henceforth openly, and in broad daylight if you please; and trust to us three--the Soldier, the Lawyer, the Churchman--to give to this paper that value which your Sovereign's advisers intend it to receive." "Your hand now, dear old friend!" cried George. "You remember I commanded you once to take mine as man and gentleman--as man and gentleman, now honour me with yours." "Is it possible?" faltered Waife, one hand in George's, the other extended in imploring appeal to Darrell--"is it possible? I vindicated-- I cleared--and yet no felon's dock for Jasper!--the son not criminated by the father's acquittal! Tell me that! again--again!" "It is so, believe me. All that rests is to force on that son, if he have a human heart, the conviction that he will be worse than a parricide if he will not save himself." "And he will--he shall. Oh, that I could but get at him!" exclaimed the preacher. "And now," said Darrell--"now, George, leave us; for now, upon equal terms, we two fathers can discuss family differences." CHAPTER VIII. SOPHY'S CLAIM EXAMINED AND CANVASSED.