Gale stopped, then poured himself another drink.
"To give yourself up?" echoed Burrell, vaguely. "How do you mean?" He had sat like one in a trance during the long recital, only his eyes alive.
"I'm under indictment for murder," said the trader. "I have been for fifteen years, and there's no chance in the world for me to prove my innocence."
"Have you told Necia?" the young man inquired.
"No, you'll have to do that—I never could—she might—disbelieve. What's more, you mustn't tell her yet. Wait till I give the word. It won't be long, perhaps a day. I want to go free a little while yet, for I've got some work to do."
Burrell rose to his feet and stamped the cramps from his muscles. He was deeply agitated, and his mind was groping darkly for light to lay hold of this new thing that confronted him.
"Why, yes, yes—of course—don't come until you're ready," he muttered, mechanically, as if unaware of the meaning of his words. "To be sure, I'm a policeman, am I not? I had forgotten I was a jailer, and—and all that." He said it sneeringly, and with a measure of contempt for his office; then he turned suddenly to the trader, and his voice was rich and deep-pitched with feeling.
"John Gale," he said, "you're the bravest man I ever knew, and the best." He choked a bit. "You sacrificed all that life meant when this girl was a baby, and now when she has come into womanhood you give up your blood for her. By God! You are a man! I want your hand!"
In spite of himself he could not restrain the moisture that dimmed his eyes as he gripped the toil-worn palm of this great, gray hulk of a man, so aged and bent beneath the burden of his life-long, fadeless love, who, in turn, was powerfully affected by the young man's impulsive outburst of feeling and his unexpected words of praise. The old man looked up a trifle shyly.
"Then you don't doubt no part of it?"