ould offer evidence
that would result in his acquittal. But if he must undergo some
punishment for the offence of being caught in transactions which were
all the time carried on with impunity, he told himself that interest
could be used to make his punishment light. In these hopeful moods it
was a necessity of his drama that his transgression of the law should
seem venial to him. It was only when he feared the worst that he felt
guilty of wrong.

It could not be said that these moments of a consciousness of guilt were
so frequent as ever to become confluent, and to form a mood. They came
and went; perhaps toward the last they were more frequent. What seems
certain is that in the end there began to mix with his longing for home
a desire, feeble and formless enough, for expiation. There began to be
suggested to him from somewhere, somehow, something like the thought
that if he had really done wrong, there might be rest and help in
accepting the legal penalty, disproportionate and excessive as it might
be. He tried to make this notion appreciable to Pinney when they first
met after he summoned Pinney to Quebec; he offered it as an explanation
of his action.

In making up his mind to return at all hazards and to take all the
chances, he remembered what Pinney had said to him about his willingness
to bear him company. It was not wholly a generous impulse that prompted
him to send for Pinney, or the self-sacrificing desire to make Pinney's
fortune in his new quality of detective; he simply dreaded the long
journey alone; he wanted the comfort of Pinney's society. He liked
Pinney, and he longed for the vulgar cheerfulness of his buoyant spirit.
He felt that he could rest upon it in the fate he was bringing himself
to face; he instinctively desired the kindly, lying sympathy of a soul
that had so much affinity with his own. He telegraphed Pinney to come
for him, and he was impatient till he came.

Pinney started the instant he received Northwick's telegram, and met him
with an enthusiasm of congratulation. "Well, Mr. Northwick, this is a
great thing. It's the right thing, and it's the wise thing. It's going
to have a tremendous effect. I suppose," he added, a little tremulously,
"that you've thought it all thoroughly over?"

"Yes; I'm prepared for the worst," said Northwick.

"Oh, there won't be any _worst_," Pinney returned gayly. "There'll be
legal means of delaying the trial; your lawyer can manage that; or if he
can't