ck
with a shattering crash. Robert Turold and I were locked in one another's
arms, wrestling desperately for the revolver, when I saw the great moon
face of the clock flit past my vision like the face of a man taking a
header off a pier. The crash startled Robert Turold. His hand loosened,
and I got the revolver from him. As I tore it from his fingers it went
off, and shot him.

"He backed away from me with a kind of frozen smile, then crumpled up and
slid to the floor. I bent over him. He made a slight movement, but I could
see that he was dying--that he had only a very few moments to live.

"Coolly and rapidly I reflected. The fall of the clock would be heard
downstairs. Flight! There was a chance, if Thalassa had not returned. My
other instinct was to secure the proofs first, though they were really
useless then. I rummaged in the clock-case, and found a large envelope
which I stuffed in my pocket. The face stared up at me; the clock had
stopped at a minute to nine. I had an idea--an inspiration. I pulled the
long hand down to the hour-half--to half-past nine. If I escaped from the
house undiscovered, with only that half-stupid little woman downstairs, I
would rush across the moors home--call my servant on some pretext as soon
as I got in, and ask her the time. Then I should be quite safe--could defy
everybody. Make it ten o'clock, then! No--too long to be safe. It might be
discovered.

"It is strange how quickly the brain works when the instinct of
self-preservation is aroused. These thoughts flashed through my mind in a
kind of mental lightning. In the briefest possible space of time I was on
my feet and out of the room. I locked the door on the outside, intending
to take the key to defer discovery, but it slipped from my fingers in my
haste, and fell in the dark passage. I dared not stop to search, for just
then I heard a sound--or thought I did. Panic seized me. I feared I was
trapped--my escape cut off. I flung precaution aside and went leaping
downstairs to the door. I fumbled for the door-catch in the darkness,
flung open the door, and ran out into the night--across the moors and
home.

"I had hardly got inside before your sister came with her husband to see
me--to beg me to go with her to Flint House and reason with your brother.
To reason with him! He was beyond the futility of argument, the folly of
retort. I did not want to go--at first. Then it dawned upon me that a
kindly fate offered me a providenti