"My cousin, by the girl who said that she loved me. After that, after that--" he flung himself down on the broken chair, and gnawed his fingers. "She never loved you," said Elspeth with a tremor in her voice, and a high colour in her cheeks. "How do you know?" "I have seen her. A doll, a soulless woman, a selfish girl. She could never love a man as a man ought to be loved. Do you think that I would have doubted you, that I----" here she became conscious that she was revealing her secret, and became violently red. Mrs. Kind touched Herries' arm. "I told you so," said she in an undertone. "What do you think now?" Herries sat mute with loosely clasped hands, and stared at the shrinking girl. Elspeth was clinging to the caravan wall, utterly confused, and although her face was turned away, she felt that the eyes of the man she loved were upon her, striving, as it were, to read her very soul. And why should he not, since that soul was clean and pure, and ready to give itself to this man, who was under the ban of the law. As the knowledge of this came to her, she lifted her head proudly and sent a glance in the direction of Herries, which showed plainly all she thought, all she was trying to conceal. "Good God," murmured Herries under his breath, and hid his face in his hands. "What have I done to deserve love like this?" In a flash he comprehended the nobility of the girl, servant though she was. He recalled how she had aided him to escape, how she had searched out this place of refuge, how her eyes never left his face, and how she seemed to hang on his words. Hitherto he had been blind, but now in a hundred ways he knew that this poor, shabbily-clothed drudge loved him with surpassing strength. He raised his eyes to look at her delicate face, at her beautifully poised head, and into her wonderful eyes, pools of liquid light, irradiated by purity, and by a love half wifely, half maternal. She was Gowrie's daughter, according to Kind, but he could see nothing of Gowrie in her. In looks and nature and principles she was as far removed from that easy-going old sinner, as the earth was from the sun. All that was of her was beautiful and gracious. She needed but love and care and artistic surroundings to blossom out into a lovely, serene, radiant woman. He had been blind not to have seen this before. He had never dreamed that she loved him. But Mrs. Kind had opened his eyes to a certain extent, being woman enough to read Elspeth's secret. Now the single glance from the girl's soulful eyes revealed everything. She loved him, adored him, him the outcast, the accused murderer, the man on whom Fortune had turned a chilly back. "I never thought of this," said Herries, raising himself with some difficulty, for his tumult of thoughts made him weak. "Elspeth!" "No!" she flung out her hands, and her face flamed, "say nothing. I am--I am--your friend."