sion of the man expressed itself even then, in the tone of
regret in which he deplored the approaching publicity of what he knew.

'I told you I had watched him,' he proceeded. 'I was instructed to do
so by Mr Montague, in whose employment I have been for some time. We had
our suspicions of him; and you know what they pointed at, for you have
been discussing it since we have been waiting here, outside the room. If
you care to hear, now it's all over, in what our suspicions began, I'll
tell you plainly: in a quarrel (it first came to our ears through a hint
of his own) between him and another office in which his father's life
was insured, and which had so much doubt and distrust upon the subject,
that he compounded with them, and took half the money; and was glad to
do it. Bit by bit, I ferreted out more circumstances against him, and
not a few. It required a little patience, but it's my calling. I found
the nurse--here she is to confirm me; I found the doctor, I found
the undertaker, I found the undertaker's man. I found out how the old
gentleman there, Mr Chuffey, had behaved at the funeral; and I found out
what this man,' touching Lewsome on the arm, 'had talked about in his
fever. I found out how he conducted himself before his father's death,
and how since and how at the time; and writing it all down, and putting
it carefully together, made case enough for Mr Montague to tax him
with the crime, which (as he himself believed until to-night) he had
committed. I was by when this was done. You see him now. He is only
worse than he was then.'

Oh, miserable, miserable fool! oh, insupportable, excruciating torture!
To find alive and active--a party to it all--the brain and right-hand
of the secret he had thought to crush! In whom, though he had walled the
murdered man up, by enchantment in a rock, the story would have lived
and walked abroad! He tried to stop his ears with his fettered arms,
that he might shut out the rest.

As he crouched upon the floor, they drew away from him as if a
pestilence were in his breath. They fell off, one by one, from that part
of the room, leaving him alone upon the ground. Even those who had him
in their keeping shunned him, and (with the exception of Slyme, who was
still occupied with his nuts) kept apart.

'From that garret-window opposite,' said Nadgett, pointing across the
narrow street, 'I have watched this house and him for days and nights.
From that garret-window opposite I saw h