her of her own earlier
utterances; how from his first coming Wesley had been treated with
studied distrust; how he had been denied the boyish intimacy that
existed between Jack and Dick; how he was insensibly made to feel that
he was in the house under a different cartel from that of Jack and Dick;
that he was a prisoner on parole, and his word was doubted. Nothing
could make him believe, he declared, getting up moodily, but that the
whole lot of them had set out to drive Wesley into a corner and then
kill him, as they had done.

Kate sighed wearily as her father left the room. If she could only be as
well assured as her strong words implied! Ah! if she could fetch back
her lover by getting at the truth, how willingly she would fly to
Rosedale and learn all! But she dared not question, lest questioning
should confirm, where she now at least had the miserable solace of
doubt. Could it be true? Could Jack be the base schemer her father
depicted him? Then her mind ran back to Rosedale. She lived again all
the enchanting days of that earthly paradise. She saw Wesley's furtive
starts, his strange disappearances, his growing melancholy, his moody
reticence when she questioned him. Ah! if he had but confided to her! If
she had but dreamed of the desperate purpose born of the loneliness he
lived in! If Jack had been loyal to him, loyal to her, Wesley would have
been warned that eager eyes were upon him, ready wits reading his
purposes, and revengeful hatred ready to slaughter him.

When the news came that Jack had lost his life in the very enterprise
Wesley had contemplated, Kate collapsed under the shock. Now, when it
was too late, she convinced herself that he was innocent. If she could
have recalled him to life, she cried in self-reproach, she would not ask
whether he was all her first impulse had painted him. She had borne up
with something like composure when Wesley's death came upon her; but
now, tortured by a sense of responsibility in Jack's fate, she gave way
to the grief she had so long repressed. If she had not upbraided him, if
she had not accused him, in so many words, of murder, he would never
have embarked on the mad plot of escape.

She had driven him to his death. She had sat silent while Acredale rang
with calumnies against him. It was not too late yet to make reparation.
She would proclaim publicly that her brother had rashly courted his own
death; that Jack had unknowingly shot him down, as many a man does