"I've still got some kind of honour, Keith; if I clear out I shall have
none, not the rag of any, left. It may be worth more to me than that--I
can't tell yet--I can't tell." There was a long silence before Keith
answered. "I tell you you're mistaken; no jury will convict. If they
did, a judge would never hang on it. A ghoul who can rob a dead body
ought to be in prison. What he did is worse than what you did, if you
come to that!" Laurence lifted his face. "Judge not, brother," he said;
"the heart is a dark well." Keith's yellowish face grew red and swollen,
as though he were mastering the tickle of a bronchial cough. "What
are you going to do, then? I suppose I may ask you not to be entirely
oblivious of our name; or is such a consideration unworthy of your
honour?" Laurence bent his head. The gesture said more clearly than
words: 'Don't kick a man when he's down!'

"I don't know what I'm going to do--nothing at present. I'm awfully
sorry, Keith; awfully sorry."

Keith looked at him, and without another word went out.

VI

To any, save philosophers, reputation may be threatened almost as much
by disgrace to name and family as by the disgrace of self. Keith's
instinct was always to deal actively with danger. But this blow, whether
it fell on him by discovery or by confession, could not be countered. As
blight falls on a rose from who knows where, the scandalous murk would
light on him. No repulse possible! Not even a wriggling from under!
Brother of a murderer hung or sent to penal servitude! His daughter
niece to a murderer! His dead mother-a murderer's mother! And to wait
day after day, week after week, not knowing whether the blow would fall,
was an extraordinarily atrocious penance, the injustice of which, to a
man of rectitude, seemed daily the more monstrous.

The remand had produced evidence that the murdered man had been drinking
heavily on the night of his death, and further evidence of the accused's
professional vagabondage and destitution; it was shown, too, that for
some time the archway in Glove Lane had been his favourite night
haunt. He had been committed for trial in January. This time, despite
misgivings, Keith had attended the police court. To his great relief
Larry was not there. But the policeman who had come up while he was
looking at the archway, and given him afterwards that scare in the
girl's rooms, was chief witness to the way the accused man haunted
Glove Lane. Though Keith hel