MacKelvey--"

"Wanda," he interrupted, his voice at once stern and troubled. "Do you
remember when you gave me the revolver that morning? I didn't explain
to you, even you. I couldn't. If I went away and stayed so long, if I
didn't remain here doing the thing you suggest, offering rewards,
hiring detectives to hunt his murderer down, couldn't you guess why?
You found the revolver that killed him."

"Wayne!"

"And the day Arthur and I rode into El Toyon I gave the thing to him.
It was his own then. He shot himself. God knows why. I should have
spoken then, I should have told MacKelvey, your father, every one. But
I hated to, I hated the thought of it, of having people know that
Arthur had committed suicide, of having men talk of it. I thought that
there would be investigations, of course, but that they would die down.
I knew that no man would be accused; it was my secret. I would keep it
for Arthur's sake."

He broke off sharply, moved strongly by his own words that conjured up
something he had striven manfully to shut out of his mind, strongly
moving the girl who heard him. She watched him with piteous, sad eyes
while he strode up and down, back and forth in the candle lighted cave.
Suddenly he stopped, exclaiming bitterly,

"Your father thinks this of me. Who else? Does half the countryside
believe me a murderer? Does Garth believe it? Does Hume? Does your
mother?"

"I don't know what Garth and Sledge Hume think," she answered. "I do
know about mamma. Wayne, even she was afraid at first, even mamma.
But she knows you too well, dear. She says that you are the other
Wayne Shandon, over and over; that you may have been a spendthrift and
a brawler,--forgive me,--dear, but that you have always been an honest
and manly man. She knows that we love each other, Wayne. She knows
that I have expected to see you. Isn't that enough?"

"Next to you, Wanda, she is the sweetest woman in the world." He took
the girl's hands in his and stood looking down at her gravely. "And
you, you have never been afraid? You recognised the revolver, you
brought it to me. Are you very sure--"

"Kiss me, Wayne," she said for answer.

And yet, when they parted lingeringly, the little cloud was still upon
the horizon, the uneasy feeling of uncertainty upon them. If, at this
late hour, he went to the sheriff and told the truth, what would be the
result? Would it sound like the truth to MacKelvey? To Martin Leland