he table, but letting his
other hand fall. "I was always a fool. I'm nothing but a fool now. I may
as well own the truth, and be done with it. I was in the clubhouse. I did
rob the wine-vault; I did carry off the bottles to have a quiet spree,
and it was to some place on Cuthbert Road I went. But, when I've admitted
so much, I've admitted all. I saw nothing of my sister's murder; saw
nothing of what went on in the rooms upstairs. I crept in by the open
window at the top of the kitchen stairs, and I came out by the same. I
only wanted the liquor, and when I got it, I slid out as quickly as I
could, and made my way over the golf-links to the Road."

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood trembling. There was something
in the silence surrounding him which seemed to go to his heart; for his
free right hand rose unconsciously to his breast, and clung there.
Sweetwater began to wish himself a million of miles away from this scene.
This was not the enjoyable part of his work. This was the part from which
he always shrunk with overpowering distaste.

The district attorney's voice sounded thin, almost piercing, as he made
this remark:

"You entered by an open window. Why didn't you go in by the door?"

"I hadn't the key. I had only abstracted the one which opens the
wine-vault. The rest I left on the ring. It was the sight of this key,
lying on our hall-table, which first gave me the idea. I feel like a cad
when I think of it, but that's of no account now. All I really care
about is for you to believe what I tell you. I wasn't mixed up in that
matter of my sister's death. I didn't know about it--I wish I had.
Adelaide might have been saved; we might all have been saved; _but it was
not to be._"

Flushed, he slowly sank back into his seat. No complaint, now, of being
in a hurry, or of his anxiety to regain his sick sister's bedside. He
seemed to have forgotten those fears in the perturbations of the
moment. His mind and interest were here; everything else had grown dim
with distance.

"Did you try the front door?"

"What was the use? I knew it to be locked."

"What was the use of trying the window? Wasn't it also,
presumably, locked?"

The red mounted hot and feverish to his cheek.

"You'll think me no better than a street urchin or something worse,"
he exclaimed. "I knew that window; I had been through it before. You
can move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated on entering
that way."

"Mr. Ranelagh