"What—he is dead, then? I thought you said—I——" Virginia's heart gave so sudden and violent a bound that she stammered, and grew red and white under the revealing moonlight. She was thinking of the portrait—seeing it again, looking into the eyes which had seemed to speak. Dead! Executed as a murderer! The thought was horrible; it stifled her.
"No, he is not dead," answered Roger gravely; "at least, if he is I haven't heard of it. But—if he still exists—one can't call it living—he must have wished a hundred times a day to die and be out of his misery. Perhaps death has come to him. It might, and I not have known; for from out of the pit which has engulfed him, seldom an echo reaches the world above."
"Roger, you frighten me! What do you mean?" the girl exclaimed.
"Forgive me, child. I forgot for a moment, and was thinking aloud. I don't often forget you, do I? I said to-day that Max Dalahaide was dead in life. That is true. Family influence, the tremendous eloquence of a man engaged to plead his cause, the fact that Max insisted upon his innocence, while the evidence was entirely circumstantial, saved him from the guillotine, which I believe he would have preferred, in his desperation. He was sent to that Hades upon earth, New Caledonia, a prisoner for life."
"But—he was English!"
"No. His parents had been English, but he, having been born in France, was a French subject. He had even served his time in the army. Naturally he was amenable to French law; and he is buried alive in Noumea, the most terrible prison in the world."
"And he was innocent!"
Roger, who had been gazing out over the sea, turned a surprised look upon Virginia.
"No! He was not innocent," he said quickly. "Everything proved his guilt. It is impossible that he should have been innocent."
"His sister believed in him."