He was gone but for three minutes. Meanwhile, I buried my face in my burning hands, and cried to myself in unspeakable misery.

For, horrible as it sounds to say so, I knew perfectly well now that Jack was Dr. Ivor: yet, in spite of that knowledge, I loved him still. He was my father’s murderer; and I couldn’t help loving him!

It was that that filled up the cup of my misery to overflowing. I loved the man well: and I must turn to denounce him.

He came back, flushed and hot, expecting thanks for his pains.

“Well, she’ll get you the lemon, Una,” he said, panting. “I overtook her by the big tulip-tree.”

I gazed at him fixedly, taking my hands from my face, with the tears still wet on my burning cheek.

“You’ve deceived me!” I cried sternly. “Jack, you’ve given me a false name. I know who you are, now. You’re no Jack at all. You’re Courtenay Ivor!”

He drew back, quite amazed. Yet he didn’t seem thunderstruck. Not fear but surprise was the leading note on his features.

“So you’ve found that out at last, Una!” he exclaimed, staring hard at me. “Then you remember me after all, darling! You know who I am. You haven’t quite forgotten me. And you recall what has gone, do you?”

I rose from the sofa, ill as I was, in my horror.

“You dare to speak to me like that, sir!” I cried. “You, whom I’ve tracked out to your hiding-place and discovered! You, whom I’ve come across the ocean to hunt down! You, whom I mean to give up this very day to Justice! Let me go from your house at once! How dare you ever bring me here? How dare you stand unabashed before the daughter of the man you so cruelly murdered?”

He drew back like one stung.

“The daughter of the man I murdered!” he faltered out slowly, as in a turmoil of astonishment. “The man I murdered! Oh, Una, is it possible you’ve forgotten so much, and yet remember me myself? I can’t believe it, darling. Sit down, my child, and think. Surely, surely the rest will come back to you gradually.”

His calmness unnerved me. What could he mean by these words? No actor on earth could dissemble like this. His whole manner was utterly unlike the manner of a man just detected in a terrible crime. He seemed rather to reproach me, indeed, than to crouch; to be shocked and indignant.

“Explain yourself,” I said coldly, in a very chilly voice. “Courtenay Ivor, I give you three minutes to explain. At the end of that time, if you can’t exonerate yourself, I walk out of this house to give you up, as I ought, to the arm of Justice!”

He looked at me, all pity, yet inexpressibly reproachful.

“Oh, Una,” he cried, clasping his hands—those small white hands of his—Aunt Emma’s hands—the murderer’s hands—how had I never before noticed them?—“and I, who have suffered so much for you! I, who have wrecked my whole life for you, ungrudgingly, willingly! I, who have sacrificed even Elsie’s happiness and Elsie’s future for you! This is too, too hard! Una, Una, spare me!”

A strange trembling seized me. It was in my heart to rush forward and clasp him to my breast. Murderer or no murderer, his look, his voice, cut me sharply to the heart. Words trembled on the tip of my tongue: “Oh, Jack, I love you!” But with a violent effort, I repressed them sternly. This horrible revulsion seemed to tear me in two. I loved him so much. Though till the moment of the discovery, I never quite realised how deeply I loved him.

“Courtenay Ivor,” I said slowly, steeling myself once more for a hard effort, “I knew who you were at once when I saw you poise yourself on the parapet. Once before in my life I saw you like that, and the picture it produced has burned itself into the very fibre and marrow of my being. As long as I live, I can never get rid of it. It was when you leapt from the window at The Grange, at Woodbury, after murdering my father!”

He started once more.

“Una,” he said solemnly, in a very clear voice, “there’s some terrible error somewhere. You’re utterly mistaken about what took place that night. But oh, great heavens! how am I ever to explain the misconception to YOU? If you still think thus, it would be cruel to undeceive you. I daren’t tell you the whole truth. It would kill you! It would kill you!”

I drew myself up like a pillar of ice.

“Go on,” I said, in a hard voice; for I saw he had something to say. “Don’t mind for my heart. Tell me the truth. I can stand it.”

He hesitated for a minute or two.

“I can’t!” he cried huskily. “Dear Una, don’t ask me! Won’t you trust me, without? Won’t you believe me when I tell you, I never did it?”

“No, I can’t,” I answered with sullen resolution, though my eyes belied my words. “I can’t disbelieve the evidence of my own senses. I SAW you escape that night. I see you still. I’ve seen you for years. I KNOW it was you, and you only, who did it!”

He flung himself down in a chair, and let his arms drop listlessly.

“Oh! what can I ever do to disillusion you?” he cried in despair.............