Milt looking pale and careworn, while in his dark eyes lingered the look of the hunted, supplanting the frank, free gaze they had worn in his careless freedom. He was a prisoner, and the sweet freedom of the hills was no longer his portion. It was some moments before the girl could trust herself to speak, and in Milt's eyes there also lingered a suspicious moisture.
The jailer and Sophronia had discreetly withdrawn to the further end of the dim corridor, and were talking over Milton's case in low voices of deep concern.
"Sally," said the prisoner, in an undertone that reached only her ears, "I have sent for you to put myself right in your eyes. After what happened the other night, and what I had said to you in my ungovernable jealousy, there's only one thing you could think of me in connection with this miserable affair, and I can't blame you in the least for thinking it. You, of all others, have the best right to call me a murderer, but as God in heaven is my judge, I swear to you, by the sacred memory of my dead mother, that I did not commit that crime!"
"I couldn't bring myself to believe you would do so dreadful a thing," said the girl, tearfully, looking into his dark eyes with the mists of doubt clearing her own, despite all the damaging circumstances.
"I didn't do it!" asserted Milt, vehemently. "I know that everything points to me as the guilty man, in your eyes, at least, but I am not guilty. It is true that I was in a frenzy, and quite beside myself with anger when I made those foolish threats. If I could have met my uncle, then and there, I think I could have throttled him and been glad of the chance.
"Before I had gone half the distance to his house, I began to understand what a fool I had been, and I was half tempted to turn back and beg your forgiveness, but pride would not let me, and I walked on almost to my uncle's gate that leads into the avenue.
"As I walked along, I began to reason more calmly with myself. Why should I burden my soul with a crime on account of a woman that had treated me thus falsely? What good could come of it? I was a fool for ever coming back. I should have stayed when once I had gotten safely away.
"To be seen in this locality was only courting death, not only for myself, but for Steve Judson, who had befriended me. After the risk he had run to save my life, it would be perfidy to bring vengeance on his head by my return. I truly hope he has left this part of the country since they have caught me," added Milton, earnestly.
"While I was thinking over all these things," he continued, "I heard a horseman coming along the road, and fearing that a flash of lightning might reveal my presence to some one I knew, I hastily climbed a fence opposite my uncle's place, and started off across the country in the direction of Grigg's Station, fully determined that I would take the first train possible, and forever leave this spot.
"Imagine my consternation when I was arrested the next morning, charged with the very crime I had threatened to commit the night before in my blind passion.