CHAPTER XXIII.
_The Reconciliation._--_Bucholz makes an Important Revelation._--_Sommers obtains His Liberty and leaves the Jail._ It is a truism almost as old as Time itself, that true love is never fully known until after the lovers have once quarreled and made their peace.

The kiss of reconciliation after a temporary estrangement is frequently more potent than the first declaration of affection.
Nor was the rule disproved in the present case, and as the two men clasped hands upon the renewal of their seeming friendship, the crisis of their intercourse was reached.

The separation of the past few days had shown Bucholz the necessity of a friendly voice and a friendly hand.

The guilty secret which he had been keeping so long in his heart must find utterance--it had become heavy to bear.

From this day forth all the concealment which he had practiced upon Sommers were to be swept away before the tide of this reconciling influence.
Hereafter they were to stand face to face, acknowledged criminals, whose joint interest was to secure their liberty; whose only object was to effect their escape from the meshes of the law they had outraged, and which now seemed to envelop them so completely.
No protestations of innocence or acknowledgments of guilt were necessary--the bedrock of an implicit and instinctive understanding had been reached, and each looked upon the other as fellow prisoners who were to suffer for their misdeeds, unless some potent agency intervened for their preservation.
From the nature of their intercourse preceding this event, Sommers did not entertain a single doubt of the guilt of William Bucholz.