ght it off--thanks to you, my
son."

"And paid for it--thanks to you," answered Mark.

"We are but men, not machines," answered the elder. "Love thrust a
finger into your brain and created the inevitable ferment. Of course
Pendean was lightning quick to win his account from that. He may
have even calculated upon it when he made Jenny beg your aid at the
outset. He knew what men thought of her; he had doubtless taken
stock of you at Princetown and probably learned that you were
unmarried. So, when time has passed and you can look back without a
groan, you will take the large view and, seeing yourself from the
outside, forgive yourself and confess that your punishment was
weightier than your error."

In gathering dusk the train thundered through the valley of the
Rhine while, above, the mountain summits melted upon the night. A
steward looked into the carriage.

"Dinner is served, gentlemen," he said. "I will, if you please, make
your beds while you are absent."

They rose and went together to the saloon carriage.

"I'm dry, son, and I've sure earned a drink," said Peter.

"You've earned a vast deal more than I or any man can ever pay you,
Ganns," said Brendon.

"Don't say it, or think it. I've done nothing that you wouldn't have
done if you had been free. And always remember this: I shall never
blame you, even when I think with dearest affection of my old
friend. I shall only blame myself, because the final, fatal mistake
was mine--not yours. I was the fool to trust you and had no excuse
for doing so. You were not to be trusted for a moment just then, and
I ought to have known it. 'Twas our limited capability that made you
err, that made me err, that made Michael Pendean err. The best laid
plans of mice and men--you know, Mark. The villain mars his
villainy; the virtuous smudge their white record; the deep brain
suddenly runs dry--all because perfection, in good or evil, is
denied to saints and sinners alike."

CHAPTER XVIII

CONFESSION

During the autumn assizes, Michael Pendean was tried at Exeter and
condemned to death for the murders of Robert, Bendigo and Albert
Redmayne. He offered no defence and he was only impatient to return
to his seclusion within the red walls of the county jail, where he
occupied the brief balance of his days with just such a statement as
Peter Ganns had foretold that he would seek to make.

This extraordinary document was very characteristic of the criminal.
It poss