"Yes," he answered, "I tell you everything was muddled—life was hazy. I knew I shot at him—I knew I shot to kill. Of course I thought that I had done it; but it's not so. I tried to do it, and then——"
She caught him wildly about the body and cried hysterically:—
"Laurie—are you sure...."
"I know, I tell you," he answered, and hastened to add:—"Yes, and there's another man that knows—Pemmican, that's the chap!"
He stopped again and looked down at the small dress, which through all his excitement he had held tenderly in the crook of his arm.
"I'm going to be a father," he went on, "and it's well that I didn't kill Hargraves. But I have got to prove it—the world must know that I didn't kill him. I must prove it—Pemmican will prove it for me—he was there."
Miriam shook her head.
"You remember his testimony at the trial, Laurie; besides," she added softly, taking an old newspaper clipping from a small drawer of her desk, "Pemmican is dead."
"Dead!" His voice rang out in astonishment. "Dead! I didn't know it. Why didn't you tell me?"
For answer she placed her finger on her lips.