So I dodged you at Waterloo, and I tried
not to let you know that I was following you from Esher station. But
you suspected somebody was; you stopped to listen more than once;
after the second time I dropped behind, but gained on you by taking
the short cut by Imber Court and over the foot-bridge where I left my
coat and hat. I was actually in the garden before you were. I saw you
smoke your Sullivan, and I was rather proud of you for it, though you
must never do that sort of thing again. I heard almost every word
between you and the poor devil upstairs. And up to a certain point,
Bunny, I really thought you played the scene to perfection."

The station lights were twinkling ahead of us in the fading velvet of
the summer's night. I let them increase and multiply before I spoke.

"And where," I asked, "did you think I first went wrong?"

"In going in-doors at all," said Raffles. "If I had done that, I
should have done exactly what you did from that point on. You couldn't
help yourself, with that poor brute in that state. And I admired you
immensely, Bunny, if that's any comfort to you now."

Comfort! It was wine in every vein, for I knew that Raffles meant what
he said, and with his eyes I soon saw myself in braver colors. I
ceased to blush for the vacillations of the night, since he condoned
them. I could even see that I had behaved with a measure of decency,
in a truly trying situation, now that Raffles seemed to think so. He
had changed my whole view of his proceedings and my own, in every
incident of the night but one. There was one thing, however, which he
might forgive me, but which I felt that I could forgive neither
Raffles nor myself. And that was the contused scalp wound over which I
shuddered in the train.

"And to think that I did that," I groaned, "and that you laid yourself
open to it, and that we have neither of us got another thing to show
for our night's work! That poor chap said it was as bad a night as he
had ever had in his life; but I call it the very worst that you and I
ever had in ours."

Raffles was smiling under the double lamps of the first-class
compartment that we had to ourselves.

"I wouldn't say that, Bunny. We have done worse."

"Do you mean to tell me that you did anything at all?"

"My dear Bunny," replied Raffles, "you should remember how long I had
been maturing this felonious little plan, what a blow it was to me to
have to turn it over to you, and how far I had travelled