morse.
_You are still keeping something back from me!_" he added, very
solemnly.

The valet groaned, but made no answer.

"That is the reason why I have no confidence in you," said his grace.

The valet wrung his gaunt hands, but continued silent.

"Now I do not ask you to confide in me; but I will give you this
warning--so long as you hold in your bosom a secret which, if revealed,
would bring the real criminal to justice, so long you will yourself
remain the object of suspicion from others and the victim of remorse
in yourself. Now, Potts, I must leave you; for I must get to Lone in time
to catch the London express. Good-night," said the duke, as he moved
away.

"One moment more, oh, my lord duke! for the love of Heaven! One moment to
do a piece of justice," pleaded the ex-valet, tottering after the young
nobleman.

"Well, well, what is it now?" inquired the latter, pausing and turning
back.

"That poor, misguided girl, Rose Cameron," said the valet.

"Well, what of _her_, man?" impatiently demanded the young nobleman.

"Listen, my lord duke! You saw her committed to prison on the charge of
perjury."

"A charge that she was self-convicted of."

"My lord duke, she was not guilty of perjury!" sighed the valet.

"What! What is that you say?" quickly demanded the duke.

"I say, Rose Cameron, poor misguided girl that she was, did not, however,
perjure herself--_intentionally_ I mean," repeated John Potts.

"Is she _mad_, then? The victim of a monomania?" gravely inquired
the duke, fixing his eyes upon the troubled face of the valet.

"No, your grace, she was never more in her right senses."

"What do you mean? Do you _dare_--"

"My lord duke, I dare nothing. I never was a daring man; if I had been,
the daring would have been taken out of me by the troubles of this last
quarter of a year! But, my lord duke, I am right. Rose Cameron did not
intentionally perjure herself, neither is she mad. Rose Cameron believes
in her heart every word of the statement she made under oath in the open
court this morning."

While the man thus spoke, the duke looked fixedly at him in perfect
silence, in the forlorn hope of hearing some solution to the enigma.

"Rose Cameron was deceived, my lord duke--grossly, cruelly, basely
deceived--not in one respect only, but in many. She was, first of all,
deceived into the idea of being the wife of a gentleman of high rank,
when, in fact she is nobody's wife at all. Next she was d