he influence of this
impression I said:

"Are you sure that he made no denial of this crime? That does not seem
like Arthur, guilty or innocent."

"He made none in my presence and I was in the coroner's office when
the ring was produced from its secret hiding-place and set down before
him. There was no open accusation made, but he must have understood
the silence of all present. He acknowledged some days ago, when
confronted with the bottle found in Cuthbert Road, that he had taken
both it and another from the club-house just before the storm began to
rage that night."

"The hour, the very hour!" I muttered.

"He entered and left by that upper hall window, or so he says; but he is
not to be believed in all his statements. Some of his declarations we
know to be false."

"Which ones? Give me a specimen, Charlie. Mention something he has said
that you know to be false."

"Well, it is hard to accuse a man of a direct lie. But he cannot be
telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to
Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such
extraordinary proof."

Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes. I
was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to them,
struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go home; he,
without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this conviction
penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I shrank
inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it plunged me.
To have suffered, myself,--to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and
the disgrace of arrest--had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to
beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised
attempt to better my position and Carmel's by what I had considered a
totally harmless subterfuge.

I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which
lay before me. The voice which whispered that Arthur Cumberland was not
over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his
position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message, and
could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment. The
lout was human; and I could not stifle my convictions in his favour.

But Carmel!

I clenched my hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high noon,
but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes away; that
something or any