Then Maud Barrington, sitting where all could see her, signed imperiously to Alfreton, who was on his feet next moment, with Macdonald and more of the men following him.

“I,” he said, with a little ring in his voice and a flush in his young face, “owe him everything, and I’m not the only one.  This, it seems to me, is the time to acknowledge it.”

Barrington checked him with a gesture.  “Sit down, all of you.  Painful and embarrassing as it is, now we have gone so far, this affair must be elucidated.  It would be better if you told us more.”

Winston drew back a chair, and when Courthorne moved, the man who sat next to him laid a grasp on his arm.  “You will oblige me by not making any remarks just now,” he said dryly.  “When Colonel Barrington wants to hear anything from you he’ll ask you.”

“There is little more,” said Winston.  “I could see no hope in the old country, and came out to this one with one hundred pounds a distant connection lent me.  That sum will not go very far anywhere, as I found when, after working for other men, I bought stock and took up Government land.  To hear how I tried to do three men’s work for six weary years, and at times went for months together half-fed, might not interest you, though it has its bearing on what came after.  The seasons were against me, and I had not the dollars to tide me over the time of drought and blizzard until a good one came.  Still, though my stock died, and I could scarcely haul in the little wheat the frost and hail left me, with my worn-out team, I held on, feeling that I could achieve prosperity if I once had the chances of other men.”

He stopped a moment, and Macdonald poured out a glass of wine and passed it across to him in a fashion that made the significance of what he did evident.

“We know what kind of a struggle you made by what we have seen at Silverdale,” he said.

Winston put the glass aside, and turned once more to Colonel Barrington.

“Still,” he said, “until Courthorne crossed my path, I had done no wrong, and I was in dire need of the money that tempted me to take his offer.  He made a bargain with me that I should ride his horse and personate him, that the police troopers might leave him unsuspected to lead his comrades running whisky, while they followed me.  I kept my part of the bargain, and it cost me what I fancy I can never recover, unless the trial I shall shortly face will take the stain from me.  While I passed for him your lawyer found me, and I had no choice between being condemned as a criminal for what Courthorne had in the meanwhile done, or continuing the deception.  He had, as soon as I had left him, taken my horse and garments, so that if seen by the police they would charge me.  I could not take your money, but, though Courthorne was apparently drowned, I did wrong when I came to Silverdale.  For a time the opportunities dazzled me; ambition drew me on, and I knew what I could do.”