"If I had not written you would now be Jason's wife," he said. "And by this light I see his imprisonment. It was you who accused him of a design upon my life. Why? Because you knew what he had confessed to you. For your own ends you used his oath against him, knowing he could not deny it. And what was your purpose? To put him away. Why? Because he was pursuing you for deserting him. But you made his vow your excuse, and the brave lad said nothing. No, not a word; and yet he might have dishonored you before them all. And when I wished to sign his pardon you tried to prevent me. Was that for my sake? No, but yours. Was it my life you thought to protect? No, but your own secret."
Thus, in the agony of his tortured heart, the hot hard words came from him in a torrent, but before the flood of them was spent, Greeba stepped up to him with flashing eyes, and all the wrath in her heart that comes of outraged love, and cried,
"It is false. It is false, I say. Send for him and he himself will deny it. I can trust him, for he is of a noble soul. Yes, he is a man indeed. I challenge you to send for him. Let him come here. Bring him before me, and he shall judge between us."
"No," said Michael Sunlocks, "I will not send for him. For what you have done he shall suffer."
Then there was a knock at the door, and after a pause the Lagmann entered, with his stoop and uncertain glance. "Excuse me," he said, "will you sign the pardon now, or leave it until the morning?"
"I will not sign it at all," said Michael Sunlocks. But at the next moment he cried: "Wait! after all it is not the man's fault, and he shall not suffer." With that he took the paper out of the law-man's hand and signed it hurriedly. "Here," he said, "see that the man is set free immediately."
The Lagmann looked at both of them out of his nearsighted eyes, coughed slightly, and left the room without a word more.