I told you that. I--I thought
myself a murderer, and all this time my terrible thought has driven
me--Lived? I never killed him? God! Betty, say it again."

Betty sat still for a moment, shaken at first with a feeling of
resentment that he had made them all suffer so, and Richard most of
all. Then she was overwhelmed with pity for him, and with a glad
tenderness. It was all over. The sorrow had been real, but it had all
been needless. She placed her hand on his head, then knelt beside him
and put her arm about his neck and drew his head to her bosom,
motherwise, for the deep mother heart in her was awakened, and thus
she told him all the story, and how Richard had come to her, broken
and repentant, and what had been said between them. When they rose
from their knees, it was as if they had been praying and at the same
time giving thanks.

"And you thought they would find him lying there dead and know you had
killed him and hunt you down for a murderer?"

"Yes."

"Poor Peter! So you pushed that great stone out of the edge of the
bluff into the river to make them think you had fallen over and
drowned--and threw your things down, too, to make it seem as if you
both were dead."

"Yes."

"Oh, Peter! What a terrible mistake! How you must have suffered!"

"Yes, as cowards suffer."

They stood for a moment with clasped hands, looking into each other's
eyes. "Then it was true what Richard told me? You did not love me,
Betty?" He had grown calmer, and he spoke very tenderly. "We must have
all the truth now and conceal nothing."

"Not quite--true. I--I--thought I did. You were so handsome! I was
only a child then--and I thought I loved you--or that I ought to--for
any girl would--I was so romantic in those days--and you had been
wounded--and it was like a romance--"

"And then?"

"And then Richard came, and I knew in one instant that I had done
wrong--and that I loved him--and oh, I felt myself so wicked."

"No, Betty, dear. It was all--"

"It was not fair to you. I would have been true to you, Peter; you
would have never known--but after Richard came and told me he had
killed you,--I felt as if I had killed you, too. I did like you,
Peter. I did! I will do whatever is right."

"Then it was not in vain--that we have all suffered. We have been
saved from doing each other wrong. Everything will come right now. All
that is needed is for father to hear what you have told me, and he
will come and take me out of here-