rning, puffy and curious, with a leer on it he had never noticed
before; his young daughter's lifted eyebrows, mouth drooping, eyes
troubled; the tiny gilt crucifix glinting in the hollow of the dead
girl's arm; the sightless look in Larry's unclosed eyes; even his own
thumb and finger pulling the lids down. And then he saw a street and
endless people passing, turning to stare at him. And, stopping in his
tramp, he said aloud: "Let them go to hell! Seven days' wonder!" Was he
not trustee to that confession! Trustee! After all he had done nothing
to be ashamed of, even if he had kept knowledge dark. A brother! Who
could blame him? And he picked up those sheets of paper. But, like
a great murky hand, the scandal spread itself about him; its coarse
malignant voice seemed shouting: "Paiper!... Paiper!... Glove Lane
Murder!... Suicide and confession of brother of well-known K.C.....
Well-known K.C.'s brother.... Murder and suicide.... Paiper!" Was he
to let loose that flood of foulness? Was he, who had done nothing, to
smirch his own little daughter's life; to smirch his dead brother, their
dead mother--himself, his own valuable, important future? And all for
a sewer rat! Let him hang, let the fellow hang if he must! And that was
not certain. Appeal! Petition! He might--he should be saved! To have got
thus far, and then, by his own action, topple himself down!

With a sudden darting movement he thrust the confession in among the
burning coals. And a smile licked at the folds in his dark face,
like those flames licking the sheets of paper, till they writhed and
blackened. With the toe of his boot he dispersed their scorched and
crumbling wafer. Stamp them in! Stamp in that man's life! Burnt! No more
doubts, no more of this gnawing fear! Burnt? A man--an innocent-sewer
rat! Recoiling from the fire he grasped his forehead. It was burning hot
and seemed to be going round.

Well, it was done! Only fools without will or purpose regretted. And
suddenly he laughed. So Larry had died for nothing! He had no will,
no purpose, and was dead! He and that girl might now have been living,
loving each other in the warm night, away at the other end of the
world, instead of lying dead in the cold night here! Fools and weaklings
regretted, suffered from conscience and remorse. A man trod firmly, held
to his purpose, no matter what!

He went to the window and drew back the curtain. What was that? A gibbet
in the air, a body hanging? Ah! Only t