"It was no murder, but justice, that I did on Torquil St. Just," said he. "He would have killed me if he could. But I suppose they will always blame me for his death, Janet; and it would no doubt go hard with me, even after all these years, if any but you knew my whereabouts.
"But—I'm safe with you, Janet. And I'll do no murder, I give you my word. I have other means—
"I'm safe with you, Janet," he repeated, glancing about the quiet, lamp-lit room.
"None will enter without my leave," she hastened to reassure him. "You can stay safe here, Farish, till we can come at some plan to help each other, for I cannot bide in the castle for long either, now you've come back.
"But—you must work no more harm in the house whose bread I have eaten so long. Whatever hurt Torquil St. Just did you, he has long gone to his account, and you have surely no ill will to her ladyship. She has suffered sorely too, poor thing! in her time, or I'm much mistaken."
"When did she come to Loquhariot?" Farish demanded.
"Not much more than a fortnight ago—and just in time. For before her had come, from America, a far cousin, one Mr. Justin Carthew, to claim the rights that are hers, thinking, as I did indeed, that she must be dead."
"You can't mean yon whistling, limber fellow that walks with a limp? I saw him too at the hut," said the wreck in the chair at the table with a sudden, fierce, eager light in his lack-lustre eyes. "But—I took him for a ghost. How came he here? My men told me—"
His sister had nodded silently. She sat staring at him in abject suspense, hope and despair alternately flitting across her wrinkled face.
But he said nothing more for some time. That last unaccountable twist of fate had almost stupefied him.