“Good God!” cried Philip.  “Gregson, are you mad?”

“I was almost mad, when I first made the discovery,” said Gregson, as cold as ice.  “But I am sane now.  His scheme was to have the government annul your provisional license.  Thorpe and his men were to destroy this camp, and kill you.  The money on hand from stock, over six hundred thousand dollars, would have gone into Brokaw’s pockets.  There is no need of further detail—­now—­for you can understand.  He knew Thorpe, and secured him as his agent.  It was merely a whim of Thorpe’s to take the name of Lord Fitzhugh instead of something less conspicuous.  Three months before Brokaw came to Churchill he wished to get detailed instructions to Thorpe which he dared not trust to a wilderness mail service.  He could find no messenger whom he dared trust.  So he sent Eileen.  She was at Fort o’ God for a week.  Then she came to Churchill, where we saw her.  The scheme was that Brokaw should bribe the ship’s captain to run close into Blind Eskimo Point, at night, and signal to Thorpe and Eileen, who would be waiting.  It worked, and Eileen and Thorpe came on with the ship.  At the landing—­you remember—­ Eileen was met by the girl from Fort o’ God.  In order not to betray herself to you she refused to recognize her.  Later she told her father, and Thorpe and Brokaw saw in it an opportunity to strike a first blow.  Brokaw had brought two men whom he could trust, and Thorpe had four or five others at Churchill.  The attack on the cliff followed, the object being to kill the man, but take the girl unharmed, A messenger was to take the news of what happened to Fort o’ God, and lay the crime to men who had run up to Churchill from your camp.  Chance favored you that night, and you spoiled their plan.  Chance favored me, and I found Eileen.  It is useless for me to go into detail as to what happened after that, except to say this—­that Eileen knew nothing of the proposed attack, that she was ignorant of the heinousness of the plot against you, and that she was almost as much a tool of her father as you.  Phil—­”

For the first time there came a pleading light into Gregson’s eyes as he leaned across the table.

“Phil, if it wasn’t for Eileen I would not be here.  I thought that she would kill herself when I told her as much of the story as I knew.  She told me what she had done; she confessed for her father.  In that hour of her agony I could not keep back my love.  We plotted.  I forged a letter, and made it possible to accompany Brokaw and Eileen up the Churchill.  It was not my purpose to join you, and so Eileen professed to be taken ill.  We camped, back from the river, and I sent our two Indians back to Churchill, for Eileen and I wished to be alone with Brokaw in the terrible hour that was coming.  That is all.  Everything is revealed.  I have come to you as quickly as I could, to find that Thorpe is dead.  In my own selfishness I would have shielded Brokaw, arguing that he could pay Thorpe, and work honorably henceforth.  You would never have known.  It is Eileen who makes this confession, not I. Phil, her last words to me were these:  ’You love me.  Then you will tell him all this.  Only after this, if he shows us a mercy which we do not deserve, can I be your wife.’