Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/301

 and he started to go to the bridge through the fields. He never went there—I don't know where he's been for the last half-hour, but now he's given himself up. She says she understands now—that he has done it for her." The warden raised his head, and his hand on the table curled into a clenched knob. "My God, Kreelmar, what do you stand there looking at me like that for, as if I were talking about the weather? Don't you realise what this means? She, Janet, my daughter, is in love with one of my convicts! A convict, Kreelmar! Don't you understand? A convict, a lifer—my little girl and a convict!" His fist was opening and closing—a mirthless, unpleasant laugh purled from his lips.

Doctor Kreelmar reached over and laid his hand on the warden's arm.

"Rand, old friend," he said quietly, "there's no use letting go like that—not a bit. I think I understand—better than you do. Let's talk about it a little, as though it were—the weather."

Warden Rand met the doctor's eyes for a moment, then he brushed his hand nervously across his forehead and allowed his body to relax a little in his chair.

Doctor Kreelmar pulled his own chair a little nearer to the table and sat down in it.

"You have called him a convict, a lifer," he said slowly, "and it is true—but he is an innocent man."

"Innocent!"—the word seemed to rouse the warden angrily. "Innocent! Innocent! I've heard that ever since he came here! How do you know he's innocent?"

"For the same reason that you know it," replied the little doctor calmly. "You've never said so in so many