A tragic light shone in Joan's eyes as she stood in the centre of the room glancing from her lover to his friend. She was searching for an opening for what she had come to say. Her distraught brain was overwhelmed with thoughts she could not put into words. She had driven over with the heavy team and wagon because she had no other means of reaching these two, and unless she reached them to-night she felt that by morning her sanity must be gone. Now--now--she stood speechless before them. Now, her brain refused to prompt her tongue. All was chaos in her mind, and her eyes alone warned the men of the object of her coming.
It was the Padre's voice that finally guided her. He read without hesitation or doubt the object of her mission.
"Yes," he said simply. "I am Moreton Bucklaw, the man accused of your father's murder."
Suddenly the girl's head drooped forward, and her hands covered her face as though to shut out the terrible truth which the man's words conveyed.
"O God!" she cried. "Then she was not lying to me."
Buck's eyes, fierce, almost savage at the sight of the girl's despair, shot a swift glance at his friend. It was a glance which only the white-haired man could have understood. To the looker-on it would have expressed a terrible threat. To the Padre it was the expression of a heart torn to shreds between love and friendship.
"If she told you I killed him--she was lying."
The man had not raised his tone. There was no other emotion in his manner than distress for the girl's suffering.
Joan looked up, and a gleam of hope struggled through her despair.
"Then it's not true? Oh, I knew it--I knew it! She _was_ lying to me. She _was_ lying to me as she has always lied to me. Oh, thank God, thank God!" She dropped back into the chair that had been placed for her, but which up to that moment she had ignored.
The two men waited for her emotion to pass. Buck as yet had nothing to say. And the Padre knew that until she was mistress of herself words would only be wasted.
Presently she looked up. Her eyes were dry, and the agony that had sent her upon her headlong mission was passing. The Padre's relief showed in the smile with which he met her glance. Buck stood steadily regarding her, longing to help her, but knowing that his time had not come yet.