destroying himself by inches in the cause of
science, of certain missioners in the slums; but I did not think twice of
any one of them; their lives are much too valuable for me to cut them
short on the mere chance of a compensating benefit to mankind at large.
Last, and longest, I thought of the boy upstairs. I had not meant to
sacrifice him; a young life, of some promise, is only less sacred to me
than a mature life rich in beneficent activities. But this young fellow
was going to be my ruin. I could see it in his eyes. He had found me out
about the letter; he would be the means of my being found out and stopped
for ever in the work of my life. It was his life or mine; it should be
his; but I was not going to take it there in the house, for reasons I need
not enter into here, and I intended to take more than his life while I was
about it. But he never gave me the chance. I did my best to get him to
go out with me this morning. But he refused, as a horse refuses a jump,
or a dog the water. He said he was ill; he looked ill. But I have no
doubt he was well enough to make his escape soon after my back was turned.
I see he has broken into my dark-room for the clothes I took away from him
before I went out; he would scarcely remain after that; but, to tell the
truth, I have hardly given him a thought since my return."

The readers shuddered over this long paragraph. More than once the boy
broke in with his own impulsive version of the awful moments on the Sunday
night and the Monday morning, in his bedroom at the top of the doctor's
house. He declared that nothing short of main force would have dragged
him out-of-doors that morning, that he felt it in his bones that he would
never come back alive. Then he would be sorry he had said so much.

It only increased his companion's anguish. She was reading every word
religiously, with a most painful fascination; it was as though every word
drew blood. There was a brief but terrible account of the murder of Sir
Joseph Schelmerdine outside his own house in Park Lane. It was the
rashest of all the crimes; but, apparently, the one occasion on which the
doctor had disguised himself before hand; and that only because Sir Joseph
and he knew and disliked each other so intensely that a "straight"
interview was out of the question. As it was he had escaped by a miracle,
after lying all day in a straw-loft, creeping into a carriage at
nightfall, and getting out on the wrong