cried, "if I can't help her to-night I'll finish myself; there'll be nothing left in life for me!"
"We will help her," Harkness said. "Both of us. But go on. Time's advancing. I mustn't miss my appointment."
"No, by Jove, you mustn't," said Dunbar. "Everything hangs on that. Well, to get on. It didn't take me very long to see what Crispin was doing to her father, and one day she went up to see him alone and begged him to be merciful. She says that he was charming to her and that she hated him worse than ever.
"He promised her that he would stop her father's drinking, and, of course, he didn't keep his promise, but made Tobin drink more than ever.
"It was round about Christmas that these things happened, and just about this time all sorts of stories began to circulate about him. He suddenly left, came over to Treliss, and took the White Tower where you're going to-night. After he had gone the stories grew in volume—the most ridiculous things you ever heard, about his catching rabbits and skinning them alive and holding witches' Sabbaths with his Japs—every kind of fantastic thing. And all the women who had gone to see his pretty things and raved about him when he first came said they didn't know how they 'ever could have seen anything in him,' and that he deserved imprisonment and worse.
