“I went through a lot for nothing, then,” he said almost bitterly. “If I had given my real name, I could have gotten off; but I feared the notoriety for Reuben and took the name of a man that was killed, for the sake of giving him mine and having Reuben’s father die a comparatively decent death instead of being a convict. I was on that train but the only thing wrong about my being there was that I didn’t pay my fare. I was a tramp at that time and another tramp and I were riding the bumpers--he initiated me into the mysteries of the practise. He was killed and in the confusion of the wreck I was arrested as one of the gang that was responsible for it and for the deaths of the mail clerk and engineer. They couldn’t prove anything, but circumstantial evidence implicated me as an accessory. My one hope of clearing myself would have been to establish my identity as Richard Cartwright, which, as I said, I did not choose to do. Wherefore I landed in the penitentiary.” The girl gave a little involuntary, startled, deprecating cry. Richard Cartwright faced her almost sternly with folded arms. “You have been there--not ever since?” she protested. He told her that he had served two years of a sentence of five when the confession of a member of the gang who died of consumption had freed him. “But why didn’t you come back here then?” she cried. “If you could have seen me the day after I left the prison, you wouldn’t ask,” he said bitterly. “I became a bum on the spot. I deliberately took up the drink habit again and became a drunkard and a tramp. I kept at it for three years--years that are almost a blank to me now. Then something happened--I don’t know what it was--that set me thinking of Reuben and Farleigh and Russell Langley and I decided to stop long enough to put myself into shape to come East and see if they were alive and how things were going on and all that. That was nearly a year ago. I stopped drinking, went to work, earned and saved money enough to clothe myself decently and to take this sight-seeing trip, and--here I am.” Again he wiped his damp brow with his pocket handkerchief and looked at the girl--defiantly, bitterly, yet deprecatingly and wistfully. “But why don’t you stay, now?” she cried. “And why don’t you see Mr. Langley and Reuben? Though I know Reuben only by hearsay, I know enough of him to know that he would be--_crazy_ to see you.” She smiled tremulously. “He’s the faithful sort, if I’m not,” she said. “O Miss Lorraine, don’t hit a fellow who’s down,” he begged. “But you will--you will stay and--you will see them, Reuben and Mr. Langley?” “No, Miss Lorraine, I cannot stay. And I’ll see them, but I won’t let them see me and I will remain dead to everyone but you just the same. I will roam about dear old Farleigh and see the changes, and I won’t hurry, but--I’ll go back presently. This is only a vacation,--a sight-seeing trip on the part of John Converse.” “Back to what?” asked the girl imperiously.