The girl’s face was white with despair, but she did not lose her self-control.  She answered the man, thoughtfully—­as though they were discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest.  “I think, Mr. Marston,” she said, “that it would depend upon what it was that the man wanted the convict to do.  It seems to me that I can imagine the convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his freedom.  What was it the man wanted?”

Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.

The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.

At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, “Freedom and a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only the memory of a good deed—­which should the man choose, Miss Andres?”

“I think,” she replied, “that you should tell me, plainly, what it was that the man wanted the convict to do.”

“I will go on with the story,” said the other.

“The convict’s benefactor—­or, perhaps I should say, master—­loved a woman who refused to listen to him.  The girl, for some reason, left home, very suddenly and unexpectedly to any one.  She left a hurried note, saying, only, that she was going away.  By accident, the man found the note and saw his opportunity.  He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the mountains.  He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no one would know what had become of her.  He believed that she would marry him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone, because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she had gone with him.  Their marriage would save her good name.  He wanted the man whom he could send back to prison to help him.

“The convict had known his benefactor’s kindness of heart, you must remember, Miss Andres.  He knew that this man was able to give his wife everything that seems desirable in life—­that thousands of women would have been glad to marry him.  The man assured the convict that he desired only to make the girl his wife before all the world.  He agreed that she should remain under the convict’s protection until she was his wife, and that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony.”  The man paused.

When the girl did not speak, he said again, “Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the convict obeyed his master?”

“No,” said the girl, softly, “I do not wonder.  But, Mr. Marston,” she continued, hesitatingly, “what do you think the convict in your story would have done if the man had not—­if he had not wanted to marry the girl?”

“I know what he would have done in that case,” the other answered with conviction.  “He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell.  He would have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his freedom at such a price.”