"Now, in the first place, how did he connect me with the business?"
"I told him," I replied simply. "I had to tell him—I meant to tell him, for the sake of the girl."
"Well, Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, then what brings you here? You tell the boy where to find me, and then come skulking with your tail between your legs to warn me. I don't understand it."
"I wanted to save the girl," I answered fearlessly. "Don't you understand that he was to wait in a certain place, until I came to him, bringing the girl; he would have waited there for a time, and then have come to the house to find me? And don't you understand," I cried passionately, "that I'm not fighting for you now, but for him?"
He turned to me quickly; looked at me curiously. "Fighting for him?"
In the tense stillness of the room, as we looked into each other's eyes, it almost seemed to me that I could hear the echoing footsteps of the boy pacing up and down outside—waiting, with murder in his heart. My own heart was beating madly; I could scarcely get out the words I uttered.
"Yes—fighting for him," I whispered—"won't you understand that? Twenty years ago a man like you wronged a woman with his tongue, and died because of that wrong. A boy—just such another as the boy who walks up and down outside there now—struck him dead, and stood under the gallows for his crime. I was that boy; and he who waits below is but myself, come back to life to do what I did. I am not fighting for you—you are nothing; I am here to-night to save the boy from my fate. For as there is a God above us, he is here to kill you!"
He looked at me steadily for a moment or two, and then turned away. I saw him pull his handkerchief from the sleeve of his coat, and pass it once across his forehead, and then rub his hands with it hard, as though they were wet. Then, in the most matter-of-fact way, he came back to me, and looked at me steadily. His eyes were very bright—brighter and darker in contrast with the pallor of his face.
"You're not lying to me?" he demanded, in a whisper.
"I am not lying."