very impulse to do so; BUT I COULD
NOT MOVE. I stood shivering with the paralysis of fear. Fear of the
deep black water, the steep brick sides of the canal that seemed to
stretch away for ever--fear of death, I suppose that was it. I don't
know. Fear irresistible, unconquerable, gripped me as it had gripped me
before, as it has gripped me since. And she drowned before my eyes
while I stood like a stone."

There was an awful pause. He had told me the end of the tragedy so
swiftly and in a voice so keyed to the terror of the scene, that I lay
horror-stricken, unable to speak. He buried his face in his hands, and
between the fleshy part of the palms I saw the muscles of his lips
twitch horribly. I remembered, with a shiver, how I had first seen them
twitch, in his mother's house, when he had made his strange, almost
passionate apology for fear. And he had all but described this very
incident: the reckless, hare-brained devil standing on the bank of a
river and letting a wounded comrade drown. I remember how he had
defined it: "the sudden thing that hits a man's heart and makes him
stand stock-still like a living corpse--unable to move a muscle--all
his will-power out of gear--just as a motor is out of gear.... It is as
much of a fit as epilepsy."

The span of stillness was unbearable. The watch on the little table by
my bedside ticked maddeningly. Marigold put his head in at the door,
apparently to warn me that it was getting late. I waved him imperiously
away. Boyce did not notice his entrance. Presently he raised his head.

"I don't know how long I stood there. But I know that when I moved she
was long since past help. Suddenly there was a sharp crashing noise on
the road below. I looked round and saw no one. But it gave me a
shock--and I ran. I ran like a madman. And I thought as I ran that, if
I were discovered, I should be hanged for murder. For who would believe
my story? Who would believe it now?"

"I believe it, Boyce," I said.

"Yes. You. You know something of the hell my life has been. But who
else? He had every motive for the crime, the lawyers would say. They
could prove it. But, my God! what motive had I for sending all my
gallant fellows to their deaths at Vilboek's Farm? ... The two things
are on all fours--and many other things with them.... My one sane
thought through the horror of it all was to get home and into the house
unobserved. Then I came upon the man Gedge, who had spied on me."

"I know ab