“Oh,” she sobbed, “if I had only known where to find you before!  Ever since you escaped I have been hoping and longing that you would come to me.”  Then she half pushed me back, and gazed up into my face with her blue, tear-stained eyes.  “Where have you been?  What have they done to you?  Oh, tell me—­tell me, Neil.  It’s breaking my heart to see you so different.”

For a moment I hesitated.  I would have given much if I could have undone the work of the last few minutes, for even to be revenged on George I would not willingly have brought my wretched troubles and dangers into Joyce’s life.  Now that I had done so, however, there seemed to be no other course except to tell her the truth.  It was impossible to leave her in her present agony of bewilderment and doubt.

Pulling up one of the chairs I sat down, drawing her on to my knee.

“If I had known it was you, Joyce,” I said, “I should have let George go to the devil before I followed him here.”

“But why?” she asked.  “Where should you go to if you didn’t come to me?”

“Oh, my poor Joyce,” I said bitterly; “haven’t I brought enough troubles and horrors into your life already?”

She interrupted me with a low, passionate cry. “You talk like that!  You, who have lost everything for my wretched sake!  Can’t you understand that every day and night since you went to prison I’ve loathed and hated myself for ever telling you anything about it?  If I’d dreamed what was going to happen I’d have let Marks—­”

I stopped her by crushing her in my arms, and for a little while she remained there sobbing bitterly, her cheek resting on my shoulder.  For a moment or two I didn’t feel exactly like talking myself.

Indeed it was Joyce who spoke first.  Raising her head she wiped away her tears, and then sitting up gazed long and searchingly into my face.

“There is nothing of you left,” she said, “nothing except your eyes—­your dear, splendid eyes.  I think I should have known you by those even if you hadn’t spoken.”  Then, taking my hands again and pressing them to her, she added passionately:  “Oh, tell me what it means, Neil.  Tell me everything that’s happened to you from the moment you got away.”

“Very well,” I said recklessly:  “I shall be dragging you into all sorts of dangers, and I shall be breaking my oath to McMurtrie, but after all that’s just the sort of thing one would expect from an escaped convict.”

Step by step, from the moment when I had jumped over the wall into the plantation, I told her the whole astounding story.  She listened to me in silence, her face alone betraying the feverish interest with which she was following every word.  When I came to the part about Sonia kissing me (I told her everything just as it had happened) her hands tightened a little on mine, but except for that one movement she remained absolutely still.

It was not until I had finished speaking that she made her first comment.  After I stopped she sat on for a moment just as she was; and then quite suddenly her face lighted up, and with a little low laugh that was half a sob she leaned forward and slid her arm round my neck.