"Is that your signature?" asked the stranger.
Ewan glanced at Dan, and Dan's head was on his breast and his lips quivered. The Bishop was trembling visibly, and sat with head bent low by the sorrow of a wrecked and shattered hope.
The stranger looked from Ewan to Dan, and from Dan to the Bishop. The Deemster gazed steadily before him, and his face wore a ghostly smile.
"Is it your signature?" repeated the stranger, and his words fell on the silence like the clank of a chain.
Ewan saw it all now. He glanced again at the document, but his eyes were dim, and he could read nothing. Then he lifted his face, and its lines of agony told of a terrible struggle.
"Yes," he answered, "the signature is mine—what of it?"
At that the Bishop and Mona raised their eyes together. The stranger looked incredulous.
"It is quite right if you say so," the stranger replied, with a cold smile.
Ewan trembled in every limb. "I do say so," he said.
His fingers crumpled the document as he spoke, but his head was erect, and the truth seemed to sit on his lips. Dan dropped heavily into a chair and buried his face in his hands.