After a time Sheila rose from the bunk on which she had been sitting and stood in the center of the floor, looking down at her father. Dakota had not moved. He stood also, watching Langford, his face pale and grim, and he did not speak until Sheila had addressed him twice.
“What are you going to do now?” she said dully. “It is for you to say, you know. You hold his life in your hands.”
“Do?” He smiled bitterly at her. “What would you do? I have waited ten years for this day. It must go on to the end.”
“The end?”
“Yes; the end,” he said gravely. “He”—Dakota pointed to the prostrate figure—“must sign a written confession.”
“And then?”
“He will return to answer for his crime.”
Sheila shuddered and turned from him with bowed head.
“Oh!” she said at last; “it will be too horrible! My friends in the East—they will——”
“Your friends,” he said with some bitterness. “Could your friends say more than my friends said when they thought that I had murdered my own father in cold blood and then run away?”