ad happened in the bar-room where they were drinking,
but his wife had told him the whole story. Lascelles wanted more
drink,--champagne; the bar-tender wanted to close up. They bought
several bottles, however, and had them put in the cab, and Lascelles was
gay and singing, and, instead of going directly home, insisted on
stopping to make a call on the lady who occupied the upper floor of the
house Doyle rented on the levee. Doyle rarely saw her, but she sometimes
wrote to Lascelles and got Bridget to take the letters to him. She was
setting her cap for the old Frenchman. "We called her Mrs. Dawson." The
cabman drove very slowly through the storm as Doyle walked home along
with Bridget and some man who was helping, and when they reached the
gate there was the cab and Waring in it. The cab-driver was standing by
his horse, swearing at the delay and saying he would charge double fare.
Doyle had had trouble with his wife for many years, and renewed trouble
lately because of two visits Lascelles had paid there, and that evening
when she sent for him he was drinking in Waring's room, had been
drinking during the day; he dreaded more trouble, and 'twas he who took
Waring's knife, and still had it, he said, when he entered the gate, and
no sooner did he see Lascelles at his door than he ordered him to leave.
Lascelles refused to go. Doyle knocked him down, and the Frenchman
sprang up, swearing vengeance. Lascelles fired two shots, and Doyle
struck once,--with the knife,--and there lay Lascelles, dead, before
Doyle could know or realize what he was doing. In fact, Doyle never did
know. It was what his wife had told him, and life had been a hell to him
ever since that woman came back. She had blackmailed him, more or less,
ever since he got his commission, because of an old trouble he'd had in
Texas.

And this confession was written out for him, signed by Doyle on his
dying bed, duly witnessed, and the civil authorities were promptly
notified. Bridget Doyle was handed over to the police. Certain
detectives out somewhere on the trail of somebody else were telegraphed
to come in, and four days later, when the force of the fever was broken
and Waring lay weak, languid, but returning to his senses, Cram and the
doctor read the confession to their patient, and then started to their
feet as he almost sprang from the bed.

"It's an infernal lie!" he weakly cried. "I took that knife from Doyle
and kept it. I myself saw Lascelles to his