tal, Jim Langford had sat
beside Phil, glooming into space, his face like chiselled grey
granite.

"My God!" he exclaimed at last and only his lips moved.

"Yes, Jim,--and Graham Brenchfield sat among the spectators all
through the trial, heard me sentenced, rose and went out into his
merry world without as much as a twitch of his eyelid for Phil
Ralston.

"Ah, well! it's over and done with. But can you blame me, Jimmy, for a
little bitterness in my heart against that fine gentleman for his
cowardice and treachery?"

"Blame you," exclaimed Jim, passionately. "Great God! if he had done
this with me, Phil, I would have schemed and plotted till I succeeded
in getting him away to some lonely shack, then I would have tied him
up and cut little pieces out of him every day till there was nothing
left of him but his sense of pain and his throbbing black heart."

Phil laughed, rose and stretched himself.

"That's just the penny-dreadful part of you talking, Jim; the Captain
Mayne Plunkett. You know quite well you wouldn't do anything of the
kind."

But Jim was in no mood for flippancy.

"Sit down!" he commanded. "Now that you have told me so much, tell me
everything. We are in this together now and I want to know what has
passed between you and that scum since you came up here."

"You know the most of it; there isn't much more to tell," said Phil,
but obedient to his friend's wishes, he sat down again and starting in
with his first meeting, as a fugitive, with Eileen Pederstone, he told
of all the attempts that Brenchfield had made on his life, of his wild
schemes and endeavours to recover this very paper that lay on the
counterpane beside them, the existence of which Phil had been unaware
but had bluffed and double-bluffed at in order to keep Brenchfield in
his place. Right down to what had taken place that afternoon in the
forge--not a detail did Phil miss out--and last of all, he confided to
Jim the great longing in his heart that had been with him since first
he had met Eileen Pederstone, and the hope that some day, after he had
honestly achieved, he might be privileged to tell her what his
feelings were toward her.

"If you are not altogether an idiot," answered Jim bluntly, "you will
tell her the very next time you meet her. Does the lassie know that
you were jailed for something you didn't do?"

"No,--I--I didn't tell her that. But she is aware that we met some
time in the past:--that there is some kind of