crime he had himself committed. But she did feel this,--that Sir
Gilbert would surely never stand by and let an innocent man die
for his own transgression.

IF he recovered, that was to say. But perhaps he would not recover.
Perhaps his life would flicker out by degrees in the midst of his
delirium, and he would go to his grave unconfessed and unforgiven!
Perhaps even, for his wife's and daughter's sake, he would shrink
from revealing what Elma felt to be the truth, and would rest
content to die, leaving Guy Waring to clear himself at the trial,
as best he might, from this hateful accusation.

It would be unjust. It would be criminal. Yet Sir Gilbert might do
it.

Elma had a bad time, therefore, during all those long days,
even before Guy returned to England. She knew his life hung by a
slender thread, which Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve might cut short at
any moment. But her anxiety was as nothing compared to Sir Gilbert's
own. That unhappy man, a moral coward at heart, in spite of all
his blustering, lay writhing in his own room now, very ill, and
longing to be worse, longing to die, as the easiest way out of
this impossible difficulty. For his wife's sake, for Gwendoline's
sake, it was better he should die; and if only he could, he would
have left Guy Waring to his fate contentedly. His anger against
Guy burnt so bright now at last that he would have sacrificed him
willingly, provided he was not there himself to see and know it.
What did the man mean by living on to vex him? Over and over again
the unhappy judge wished himself dead, and prayed to be taken. But
that powerful frame, though severely broken by the shock, seemed