hlessly for some change in her white
stony face; but her sad eyes met his with no wavering of the lids, and
only her delicate nostrils dilated slightly. She raised her locked
hands, rested her lips a moment on her mother's ring, as if drinking
some needed tonic, and answered in the same low, quiet tone:

"Then, prime minister of justice, set me free, and punish the guilty.
Who murdered General Darrington?"

"You have known from the beginning; and I intend to set you free, when
that cowardly miscreant has been secured. You would die to save your
lover; you, proud, brave, noble natured, would sacrifice your precious
life for that wretched, vile poltroon, who flees and leaves you to
suffer in his stead! Truly, there is no mystery so profound, so
complex, so subtle as a woman's heart. To die for his crimes, were a
happier fate than to sully your fair soul by alliance with one so
degraded; and, by the help of God, I intend to snatch you from both!"

He had put his hands for an instant upon her shoulders, and his
handsome face flushed, eloquent with the feeling that he no longer
cared to disguise, was so close to hers, that she felt his breath on
her cheek.

Swiftly, unerringly she comprehended everything; and the suddenness of
the discovery dazzled, awed her, as one might feel under the blue flash
of a dagger when thrust into one's clasp for novice fingers to feel the
edge. Was the weapon valued merely because of the possibility of
fleshing it in the heart of him who had darkened her life? Did he
understand as fully the marvellous change in the beautiful face, that
had lured him from his chapel tryst with his betrothed? He was on the
alert for signals of distress, of embarrassment, of terror; but what
meant the glad light that leaped up in her eyes, the quick flush
staining her wan cheek, the triumphant smile curving lips that a moment
before might have belonged to Guercino's Mater Dolorosa, the relaxation
of figure and features, the unmistakable expression of intense relief
that stole into the countenance?

"Will you be so good as to tell me my lover's name, and where the fox
terriers of the law unearthed him?"

"I will tell you something which you do not already know; that I have
found a clue, that I shall hunt him out, hide, crouch where he may;
that here, where he sinned, he shall expiate his crime, and that when
your lover is hung, your name, your honor, shall be vindicated. So
much, Lennox Dunbar promises you, o