“My God!” he exclaimed at last and only his lips moved.
“Yes, Jim,––and Graham Brenchfield sat among the spectators all through the trial, heard me sentenced, rose and went out into his merry world without as much as a twitch of his eyelid for Phil Ralston.
“Ah, well! it’s over and done with. But can you blame me, Jimmy, for a little bitterness in my heart 295 against that fine gentleman for his cowardice and treachery?”
“Blame you,” exclaimed Jim, passionately. “Great God! if he had done this with me, Phil, I would have schemed and plotted till I succeeded in getting him away to some lonely shack, then I would have tied him up and cut little pieces out of him every day till there was nothing left of him but his sense of pain and his throbbing black heart.”
Phil laughed, rose and stretched himself.
“That’s just the penny-dreadful part of you talking, Jim; the Captain Mayne Plunkett. You know quite well you wouldn’t do anything of the kind.”
But Jim was in no mood for flippancy.
“Sit down!” he commanded. “Now that you have told me so much, tell me everything. We are in this together now and I want to know what has passed between you and that scum since you came up here.”
“You know the most of it; there isn’t much more to tell,” said Phil, but obedient to his friend’s wishes, he sat down again and starting in with his first meeting, as a fugitive, with Eileen Pederstone, he told of all the attempts that Brenchfield had made on his life, of his wild schemes and endeavours to recover this very paper that lay on the counterpane beside them, the existence of which Phil had been unaware but had bluffed and double-bluffed at in order to keep Brenchfield in his place. Right down to what had taken place that afternoon in the forge––not a detail did Phil miss out––and last of all, he confided to Jim the great longing in his heart that had been with him since first he had met Eileen Pederstone, and the hope that some day, after he had honestly achieved, he might be privileged to tell her what his feelings were toward her.
“If you are not altogether an idiot,” answered Jim 296 bluntly, “you will tell her the very next time you meet her. Does the lassie know that you were jailed for something you didn’t do?”