w weeks, it's all
the same to a night-bird of that sort. Dismiss it from your
mind--there's not nearly enough evidence to convict. This gives you your
chance. Take it like a man, and make a new life for yourself."

Laurence smiled; but the smile had a touch of madness and a touch of
malice. He took up the notes.

"Clear out, and save the honour of brother Keith. Put them back in your
pocket, Keith, or I'll put them in the fire. Come, take them!" And,
crossing to the fire, he held them to the bars. "Take them, or in they
go!"

Keith took back the notes.

"I've still got some kind of honour, Keith; if I clear out I shall have
none, not the rag of any, left. It may be worth more to me than that--I
can't tell yet--I can't tell." There was a long silence before Keith
answered. "I tell you you're mistaken; no jury will convict. If they
did, a judge would never hang on it. A ghoul who can rob a dead body
ought to be in prison. What he did is worse than what you did, if you
come to that!" Laurence lifted his face. "Judge not, brother," he said;
"the heart is a dark well." Keith's yellowish face grew red and swollen,
as though he were mastering the tickle of a bronchial cough. "What are
you going to do, then? I suppose I may ask you not to be entirely
oblivious of our name; or is such a consideration unworthy of your
honour?" Laurence bent his head. The gesture said more clearly than
words: 'Don't kick a man when he's down!'

"I don't know what I'm going to do--nothing at present. I'm awfully
sorry, Keith; awfully sorry."

Keith looked at him, and without another word went out.

VI

To any, save philosophers, reputation may be threatened almost as much by
disgrace to name and family as by the disgrace of self. Keith's instinct
was always to deal actively with danger. But this blow, whether it fell
on him by discovery or by confession, could not be countered. As blight
falls on a rose from who knows where, the scandalous murk would light on
him. No repulse possible! Not even a wriggling from under! Brother of
a murderer hung or sent to penal servitude! His daughter niece to a
murderer! His dead mother-a murderer's mother! And to wait day after
day, week after week, not knowing whether the blow would fall, was an
extraordinarily atrocious penance, the injustice of which, to a man of
rectitude, seemed daily the more monstrous.

The remand had produced evidence that the murdered man had b