ve become" he continued, leaning his head upon his bony fingers,
"a man of letters, I believe. I congratulate you. You have stepped
into the whirlpool from which no man can retrace his steps. Yet even
this is better, is it not, than the Methodism? You were not cut out, I
think, for a parson."

"Never mind me and my affairs," Douglas said hoarsely. "I want to have
nothing to do with you. I wish you no harm--only I beg that you will
leave this room, and that I may never see you again."

The newcomer did not move.

"That is all very well, Mr. Guest," he said, "but I fancy that last
time we met it was as fellow-criminals, eh?"

"We were both trying to rob your father," Douglas answered slowly, "but
there was a difference. The money I wanted, and took was mine--ay, and
more besides. He had no right to withhold it. As for you--"

"Well, he was my father, and of his own will he had never given me a
halfpenny in my life. Surely I had a right to something?"

"Let the robbery go," Douglas said, leaning across the table. "It's
true that I took but my own--but no more of that. At least I never
raised my hand against him."

The man in the chair beat with the tips of his fingers upon the table by
his side. He spoke in a dull, unemotional tone.

"Perhaps not, but while you robbed he slept. I was as gentle as you and
quieter, but in the midst of it he woke up, and I found his eyes wide
open, watching me. I saw his fingers stiffen--in a moment he would have
been upon me--so I struck him down. You heard him call and came back.
Yet we neither of us thought him dead. I did not wish to kill him.
Do you remember how we stood side by side and shuddered?

"Don't!" Douglas cried sharply. "Don't. I wish you would go away."

The man in the chair took no notice. There was a retrospective light in
his dark eyes. He tapped upon the table again with his skinny
forefinger.

"Just a little blue mark upon his temple," he continued, in the same
hard, emotionless voice. "We stood and looked at it, you and I. It was
close upon morning then, you know--it seemed to grow light as we stood
there, didn't it? You tried to bring him to. I knew that it was no
use. I knew then that he was dead."

Douglas reeled where he stood, and every atom of colour had left his
cheeks.

"I wish you would go away, or be silent," he moaned. "You will send me
mad--as you are."

Then the man in the chair smiled, and awful though his impassiveness had
been, that smi