"You seem to lose yourself at times," he remarked. "For instance, you didn't remember that trip to Buffalo."
"That's the only time I ever lost myself, I guess," was his answer. "If I hadn't lost myself then, I suppose I could have proved an alibi. I couldn't account for myself upon my trial, and nobody who knew me had seen me for a few days. I must have knocked about Buffalo and come back."
"You were looking for a farm."
"Yes, you told me that. It comes back to me now. And there was a farm, but it's all very vague—a farm some years ago somewhere up there. I had the notion to find it and to live on it—just myself and——" he broke off abruptly, and there was a new light in his eyes and a world of pathos in the voice that said: "It's my daughter that I want to see you about. I want to find her. Can't you help me to find her?"
"Don't you know where she is?"
"I haven't seen her for, oh, so long—so long. When they put me away she would come to the Tombs—twice she came up the River to see me. But the last time there was something in her face I couldn't understand, then she never came again, and I knew they'd got her. For she had to get along, somehow, and she didn't dare to face me. Poor girl, there was no one to care for her—see to her!" And then all of a sudden flaring up out of his downcast demeanour, he cried:
"Curse them! Curse that man Wilkinson—all of them! First they robbed me of my money, then they got me, and now they've got her!"
The Governor's eyes narrowed.
"What has Wilkinson to do with it?" he demanded.
"Why, don't you know?" Ilingsworth burst out excitedly. "Doesn't everybody know? Didn't you read my testimony at the trial?"