"It was I," the judge answered, in an almost inaudible, gurgling
tone. "It was I who so wronged you. Can you ever forgive me for
it?"

Guy gazed at him fixedly. He himself had suffered much. Cyril and Elma
had suffered still more. But the judge, he felt sure, had suffered
most of all of them. In this moment of relief, this moment of
vindication, this moment of triumph, he could afford to be generous.
"Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve, I forgive you," he answered slowly.

The judge gazed around him with a vacant stare. "I feel cold,"
he said, shivering; "very cold, very faint, too. But I've made all
right HERE," and he held out a document. "I wrote this paper in
my room last night--in case of accident--confessing everything.
I brought it down here, signed and witnessed, unread, intending
to read it out if the verdict went against me--I mean, against
Waring.... But I feel too weak now to read anything further.... I'm
so cold, so cold. Take the paper, Forbes-Ewing. It's all in your
line. You'll know what to do with it." He could hardly utter a word,
breath failed him so fast. "This thing has killed me," he went on,
mumbling. "I deserved it. I deserved it."

"How about the prisoner?" the authority from the gaol asked, as
the judge collapsed rather than sat down on the bench again.

Those words roused Sir Gilbert to full consciousness once more.
The judge rose again, solemnly, in all the majesty of his ermine.
"The prisoner is discharged," he said, in a loud, clear voice. "I
am here to do justice--justice against myself. I enter a verdict