“My next reason seems almost as shadowy as this; but it has considerable weight with me, nevertheless.  It is, that I believe the man who is in prison for the murder has neither strength of body nor of nerve to have committed it.”

He stopped as Mrs. Costello uttered a broken exclamation of surprise.

“You would not know him,” Mr. Strafford said gently, answering her look.  “He has changed so much since I saw him not many weeks ago, that even I scarcely did so.  They tell me that he has had an attack of fever while he was in the bush, and that he was but half recovered from it when he came back with the rest of the gang, a week ago.”

“And since then,” Mrs. Costello asked, “where has he been?”

“Not where he was likely to regain much strength.  He and the other Indians have been living in one of the shanties close to the mill.  It is extremely swampy and unhealthy there, and besides that, he seems to have been almost without food, living upon whisky.”

Lucia shuddered still; but the wretched picture softened her, nevertheless.  A feeling of compassion for the first time stole into her heart for the miserable creature who was her father.

“But that day,” she said; “do you know anything of that day?”

“He seems to have been doing nothing—­indeed I believe he had been incapable of doing anything—­for two or three days.  That morning his companions went out and left him lying on his bed asleep; they did not see him again till after he was in custody.”

“Did you question him?  What does he say?”

“He says nothing.  He remembers nothing.  He seems to me to have been suffering that day from a return of his fever, and besides that, he had had some whisky—­very little would overcome a man in his condition—­so that if he crawled out into the sunshine, and finally lay down among the bushes to sleep, it is perfectly credible that the murder might have been committed close to him without his knowing anything about it.”

“But the hatchet?  Was it not his?”

“Yes.  But he denies—­whatever his denial may be worth—­that the heavy stick which was found by him, ever was his; and though it is a hard thing to say, it can be imagined that the very things which fasten suspicion on him may have been arranged for that purpose by another person.”

“He does say something on the subject then, since he denies the stick being his?  Did he talk to you willingly on the subject?” asked Mrs. Costello.

Mr. Strafford answered her question by another.

“Have you courage and strength to see him?”

“Yes; if you think it well for me to do so.”

Lucia caught her mother’s hand.

“You have not, mamma, you must not go!  Mr. Strafford, she cannot bear the exertion.”

“You do not know what I can bear, my child.  Certainly this, if it is needful or advisable.”

“You will find it less trying in some ways than you perhaps expect,” Mr. Strafford went on, “and in others more so.  There is nothing in the man you will see to remind you of the past, and yet my great reason for thinking it well for you to see him is a hope that you may be able to recall the past to him, so as to bring him back to something like clearness of comprehension.  It seems as if nothing less would do so.”