as I who killed Felix Page."

CHAPTER XXV

"THIMBLE, THIMBLE----"

It is needless to dwell upon the scene in Alfred Fluette's study; I
shall take up merely such details as constitute an integral part of
this memoir, and hurry along.

After Genevieve had led Belle away, Mr. Fluette quickly mastered
himself. The bitter moment of the confession once passed, it seemed as
if his mind had been relieved of a great burden, and he talked to me
with comparative unreserve. But his appearance was in pitiable
contrast with what it must have been before he wandered into devious
ways. He was crushed, his mien one of hopeless submission to whatever
the future might have in store for him.

"First of all," he began, with impressive earnestness, "I want to
emphasize the fact that when I snuffed out that man's life I was in
imminent peril of my own. When I snatched up the candlestick, if ever
a man had murder in his heart Felix Page had at that moment.

"The rest was automatic; I could no more have stayed the deadly blow
than I can now hope to escape its consequences. Revolt from almost a
lifetime of pitiless, persistent persecution filled me with an
irresistible impulse to destroy and rendered my arm invincible."

I went with him, step by step, over the ground that is already
familiar. Felix Page had ever been the thorn in his flesh.

"It wasn't as if I had a tangible enemy," he declared; "he would n't
come out into the open and fight. His aims were always petty, he
perpetually annoyed and harassed me by mean and ignoble ways, which I
was obliged to bear with an assumption of ignoring them, or else lower
myself to his level to meet them. Any bold, decisive stroke would at
least have won my respect; but no, the cunning hound knew that my
disposition could not forever turn aside his sly thrusts; he knew that,
by degrees but inevitably, he was warping my nature, slowly but surely
destroying all that was best in me.

"Well," bitterly, "he has succeeded. He has ruined me not only
financially, but body and soul as well.

"Time and time again he flaunted in my face some old letters which my
wife wrote when she was a mere girl. They were such as any artless,
inexperienced girl might write to a man who has for the moment captured
her fancy; but how could that be made clear to a public ever greedy for
scandal? How would those letters read in the light of my wife's years
and the dignity of her present position? Yet the