version and exonerated him."

"Have not his attempted crimes against you and your husband
forfeited whatever rights the bonds of kinship might have accorded
him?" asked Tarzan. "The fact that you are his sister has not
deterred him from seeking to besmirch your honor. You owe him no
loyalty, madame."

"Ah, but there is that other reason. If I owe him no loyalty though
he be my brother, I cannot so easily disavow the fear I hold him
in because of a certain episode in my life of which he is cognizant.

"I might as well tell you all," she resumed after a pause, "for
I see that it is in my heart to tell you sooner or later. I was
educated in a convent. While there I met a man whom I supposed to
be a gentleman. I knew little or nothing about men and less about
love. I got it into my foolish head that I loved this man, and
at his urgent request I ran away with him. We were to have been
married.

"I was with him just three hours. All in the daytime and in
public places--railroad stations and upon a train. When we reached
our destination where we were to have been married, two officers
stepped up to my escort as we descended from the train, and placed
him under arrest. They took me also, but when I had told my story
they did not detain me, other than to send me back to the convent
under the care of a matron. It seemed that the man who had wooed
me was no gentleman at all, but a deserter from the army as well
as a fugitive from civil justice. He had a police record in nearly
every country in Europe.