to Tryst's head."

John nodded; the girl's face was evidence enough for him.

"Any proof?"

"Tryst himself told me in the prison that he did it. He said it came on
him suddenly, when he saw the straw."

A pause followed before John said:

"Good! You and I and your father will go down and see the police."

Nedda lifted her hands and said breathlessly:

"But, Uncle! Dad! Have I the right? He says--honour. Won't it be
betraying him?"

Felix could not answer, but with relief he heard John say:

"It's not honorable to cheat the law."

"No; but he trusted me or he wouldn't have written."

John answered slowly:

"I think your duty's plain, my dear. The question for the police will be
whether or not to take notice of this false confession. For us to keep
the knowledge that it's false from them, under the circumstances, is
clearly not right. Besides being, to my mind, foolish."

For Felix to watch this mortal conflict going on in the soul of his
daughter--that soul which used to seem, perhaps even now seemed, part of
himself; to know that she so desperately wanted help for her decision,
and to be unable to give it, unable even to trust himself to be
honest--this was hard for Felix. There she sat, staring before her;
and only her tight-clasped hands, the little movements of her lips and
throat, showed the struggle going on in her.

"I couldn't, without seeing him; I MUST see him first, Uncle!"

John got up and went over to the window; he, too, had been affected by
her face.

"You realize," he said, "that you risk everything by that. If he's given
himself up, and they've believed him, he's not the sort to let it fall
through. You cut off your chance if he won't let you tell. Better for
your father and me to see him first, anyway." And Felix heard a mutter
that sounded like: 'Confound him!'

Nedda rose. "Can we go at once, then, Uncle?"

With a solemnity that touched Felix, John put a hand on each side of her
face, raised it, and kissed her on the forehead.

"All right!" he said. "Let's be off!"

A silent trio sought Paddington in a taxi-cab, digesting this desperate
climax of an affair that sprang from origins so small.

In Felix, contemplating his daughter's face, there was profound
compassion, but also that family dismay, that perturbation of
self-esteem, which public scandal forces on kinsmen, even the most
philosophic. He felt exasperation against Derek, against Kirsteen,
almost even against Tod, for