rs, and comic
songs which here and there jostled one another in the short compass of a
single window. I think it was a cold shudder that suddenly passed
through me that first told me that I had found what I wanted. I looked
up from the pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above which the
lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred years ago had
grimed to black; where the windows had gathered to themselves the fog
and the dirt of winters innumerable. I saw what I required; but I think
it was five minutes before I had steadied myself and could walk in and
ask for it in a cool voice and with a calm face. I think there must
even then have been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came out
from his back parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked
oddly at me as he tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood
leaning by the counter, with a strange reluctance to take up my goods
and go. I asked about the business, and learnt that trade was bad and
the profits cut down sadly; but then the street was not what it was
before traffic had been diverted, but that was done forty years ago,
"just before my father died," he said. I got away at last, and walked
along sharply; it was a dismal street indeed, and I was glad to return
to the bustle and the noise. Would you like to see my purchase?'

Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still looked white
and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and showed
Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a running
noose.

'It is the best hempen cord,' said Villiers, 'just as it used to be made
for the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from end to
end.'

Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as he
looked.

'You would not do it,' he murmured at last. 'You would not have blood on
your hands. My God!' he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, 'you cannot
mean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman?'

'No. I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone with this
cord in a locked room for fifteen minutes. If when we go in it is not
done, I shall call the nearest policeman. That is all.'

'I must go now. I cannot stay here any longer; I cannot bear this.
Good-night.'

'Good-night, Austin.'

The door shut, but in a moment it was opened again, and Austin stood,
white and ghastly, in the entrance.

'I was forgetting,' he said, 'that I too have somet