time of my return, or attempt to create an alibi
elsewhere? Something I must do to save myself the anguish and Carmel the
danger of my testimony in this matter. She must never know, the world
must never know that I had seen her here.

I had lost at a blow everything that gives zest or meaning to life, but I
might still be spared the bottommost depth of misery--be saved the
utterance of the word which would sink that erring but delicate soul into
the hell yawning beneath her. It was my one thought now--though I knew
that the woman who had fallen victim to her childish hate had loved me
deeply and was well worth my avenging.

I could not be the death of two women; the loss of one weighed heavily
enough upon my conscience. I would fly the place--I would leave this
ghastly find to tell its own story. The night was stormy, the hour late,
the spot a remote one, and the road to it but little used. I could easily
escape and when the morrow came--but it was the present I must think of
now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long! In feverish
haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet limbs, the
accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood their strange
protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half way across the
floor when my feet were stayed--I wonder that my reason was not
unseated--by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door below,
mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the house,
calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.

It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no avail.
An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on my part was
at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises superior to reason,
I blew out the candle and softly made my way into the hall. I had
remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of the kitchen
staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just a turn or two,
and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on the ground; after
which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal my flight across the
open golf-links. It was worth trying at least; anything was better than
being found in the house with my murdered betrothed.

I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence in
this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police were
even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold of the
door the