‘The sword was your own. Of course I never for a moment doubted that.’ ‘But they believed I was lying.’ ‘I can’t persuade myself it signifies greatly what such people think about you. I except Sir Giles. The rest are--’ ‘Yet you consented to visit them.’ ‘I was in reality Sir Giles’s guest. Not one of the others would have asked me.’ ‘Not Geoffrey?’ ‘I owe _him_ nothing but undying revenge for Charley.’ Her eyes flashed through the darkness; and she looked as if she could have killed him. ‘But you were plotting against Sir Giles all the time you were his guest?’ ‘Not unjustly, though. The property was not his, but yours--that is, as we then believed. As far as I knew, the result would have been a real service to him, in delivering him from unjust possession--a thing he would himself have scorned. It was all very wrong--very low, if you like--but somehow it then seemed simple enough--a lawful stratagem for the right.’ ‘Your heart was so full of Charley!’ ‘Then you do forgive me, Wilfrid?’ ‘With all my soul. I hardly feel now as if I had anything to forgive.’ I drew her towards me and kissed her on the forehead. She threw her arms round me, and clung to me, sobbing like a child. ‘You will explain it all to Charley--won’t you?’ she said, as soon as she could speak, withdrawing herself from the arm which had involuntarily crept around her, seeking to comfort her. ‘I will,’ I said. We were startled by a sound in the clump of trees behind us. Then over their tops passed a wailful gust of wind, through which we thought came the fall of receding footsteps. ‘I hope we haven’t been overheard,’ I said. ‘I shall go at once and tell Charley all about it. I will just see you home first.’ ‘There’s no occasion for that, Wilfrid; and I’m sure I don’t deserve it.’ ‘You deserve a thousand thanks. You have lifted a mountain off me. I see it all now. When your father found it was no use--’ ‘Then I saw I had wronged you, and I couldn’t bear myself till I had confessed all.’ ‘Your father is satisfied, then, that the register would not stand in evidence?’ ‘Yes. He told me all about it.’ ‘He has never said a word to me on the matter; but just dropped me in the dirt, and let me lie there.’ ‘You must forgive him too, Wilfrid. It was a dreadful blow to him, and it was weeks before he told me. We couldn’t think what was the matter with him. You see he had been cherishing the scheme ever since your father’s death, and it was a great humiliation to find he had been sitting so many years on an addled egg,’ she said, with a laugh in which her natural merriment once more peeped out.