tremble of the passing emotion in his voice. "Obadiah told Marion that
help might come to us through you and Marion brought the word to me at
the jail late last night--after she had seen you at the window. The old
councilor kept his word! You have saved her!"

"Saved her!" gasped Nathaniel. "From what? How?" A hundred questions
seemed leaping from his heart to his lips.

"From Strang. Good God, don't you understand? I tell you that I am going
to kill Strang!"

Neil stood as though appalled by his companion's incomprehension. "I am
going to kill Strang, I tell you!" he cried again, the fire burning
deeper through the sweat of his cheeks.

Nathaniel's bewilderment still shone in his face.

"She is not Strang's wife," he spoke softly, as if to himself. "And she
is not--" His face flushed as he nearly spoke the words. "Obadiah lied!"
He looked squarely into Neil's eyes. "No, I don't understand you. The
councilor said that she--that Marion was Strang's wife. He told me
nothing more than that, nothing of her trouble, nothing about you. Until
this moment I have been completely mystified. Only her eyes led me to
do--what I did at the jail."

Neil gazed at him in astonishment.

"Obadiah told--you--nothing?" he asked incredulously.

"Not a word about you or Marion except that Marion was the king's
seventh wife. But he hinted at many things and kept me on the trail,
always expecting, always watching, and yet every hour was one of
mystery. I am in the darkest of it at this instant. What does it all
mean? Why are you going to kill Strang? Why--"

Neil interrupted him with a cry so poignant in its wretchedness that
the last question died upon his lips.

"I thought that the councilor had told you all," he said. "I thought you
knew." The disappointment in his voice was almost despair. "Then--it was
only accidentally--you helped us?"

"Only accidentally that I helped _you_--yes! But Marion--" Nathaniel
crushed Neil's hand in both his own and his eyes betrayed more than he
would have said. "I've got an armed ship and a dozen men out there and
if I can help Marion by blowing up St. James--I'll do it!"

For a time only the tense breathing of the two broke the silence of
their lips. They looked into each other's face, Nathaniel with all the
eagerness of the passion with which Marion had stirred his soul, Neil
half doubting, as if he were trying to find in this man's eyes the
friendship which he had not questioned a few minutes