s
of calculation and resolve snapped to within him. He thought with
incredible swiftness: 'I must know nothing of this. I must go!' And,
almost before he knew that he had moved, he was out again in the street.

He could never have told of what he thought while he was walking home.
He did not really come to himself till he was in his study. There, with a
trembling hand, he poured himself out whisky and drank it off. If he had
not chanced to go there, the charwoman would have found them when she
came in the morning, and given that envelope to the police! He took it
out. He had a right--a right to know what was in it! He broke it open.

"I, Laurence Darrant, about to die by my own hand, declare that this is a
solemn and true confession. I committed what is known as the Glove Lane
Murder on the night of November the 27th last in the following way"--on
and on to the last words--"We didn't want to die; but we could not bear
separation, and I couldn't face letting an innocent man be hung for me.
I do not see any other way. I beg that there may be no postmortem on our
bodies. The stuff we have taken is some of that which will be found on
the dressing-table. Please bury us together.

"LAURENCE DARRANT. "January the 28th, about ten o'clock p.m."

Full five minutes Keith stood with those sheets of paper in his hand,
while the clock ticked, the wind moaned a little in the trees outside,
the flames licked the logs with the quiet click and ruffle of their
intense far-away life down there on the hearth. Then he roused himself,
and sat down to read the whole again.

There it was, just as Larry had told it to him-nothing left out, very
clear; even to the addresses of people who could identify the girl as
having once been Walenn's wife or mistress. It would convince. Yes! It
would convince.

The sheets dropped from his hand. Very slowly he was grasping the
appalling fact that on the floor beside his chair lay the life or death
of yet another man; that by taking this confession he had taken into his
own hands the fate of the vagabond lying under sentence of death; that he
could not give him back his life without incurring the smirch of this
disgrace, without even endangering himself. If he let this confession
reach the authorities, he could never escape the gravest suspicion that
he had known of the whole affair during these two months. He would have
to attend the inquest, be recognised by that policeman as having co