nd I thought I'd live in that place, George and die a lord! It's a
great place, reely, an imperial--if anyone has the sense to buy it and
finish it. That terrace--"

I stood thinking him over.

"Look here!" I said. "What's that about--a warrant? Are you sure they'll
get a warrant? I'm sorry uncle; but what have you done?"

"Haven't I told you?"

"Yes, but they won't do very much to you for that. They'll only bring
you up for the rest of your examination."

He remained silent for a time. At last he spoke--speaking with
difficulty.

"It's worse than that. I've done something. They're bound to get it out.
Practically they HAVE got it out."

"What?"

"Writin' things down--I done something."

For the first time in his life, I believe, he felt and looked ashamed.
It filled me with remorse to see him suffer so.

"We've all done things," I said. "It's part of the game the world makes
us play. If they want to arrest you--and you've got no cards in your
hand--! They mustn't arrest you."

"No. That's partly why I went to Richmond. But I never thought--"

His little bloodshot eyes stared at Crest Hill.

"That chap Wittaker Wright," he said, "he had his stuff ready. I
haven't. Now you got it, George. That's the sort of hole I'm in."

IV

That memory of my uncle at the gate is very clear and full. I am able
to recall even the undertow of my thoughts while he was speaking.
I remember my pity and affection for him in his misery growing and
stirring within me, my realisation that at any risk I must help him.
But then comes indistinctness again. I was beginning to act. I know I
persuaded him to put himself in my hands, and began at once to plan and
do. I think that when we act most we remember least, that just in the
measure that the impulse of our impressions translates itself into
schemes and movements, it ceases to record itself in memories. I know
I resolved to get him away at once, and to use the Lord Roberts B in
effecting that. It was clear he was soon to be a hunted man, and it
seemed to me already unsafe for him to try the ordinary Continental
routes in his flight. I had to evolve some scheme, and evolve it
rapidly, how we might drop most inconspicuously into the world across
the water. My resolve to have one flight at least in my airship fitted
with this like hand to glove. It seemed to me we might be able to cross
over the water in the night, set our airship adrift, and turn up as
pedestrian tourists in Nor