ver have
done for a judge, Malcolm. I should have let all the prisoners off with
light sentences. Ah, here he comes!"

For there was the sound of wheels, a faint creaking, and from where
Stratton sat, with his back to the window, he could hear the brushing of
a light vehicle against the shrubs, as it was evidently being pushed up
to the side door.

Stratton's first impulse was to turn round and gaze out at the man he
had come to see, but he mastered his desire and sat up rigidly, with his
eyes fixed upon the door, and the scenes of the past flitting before him
in a rapid sequence. Now he was listening to the flushed, coarse
looking, brutalised scoundrel, boasting of his position and power to
wreck the future of a beautiful, innocent woman; then they were talking
fiercely together, and there was the struggle. And, again, that
horrible scene--with the smoke gradually spreading through the room,
while Barron lay prone upon the carpet, with a little thread of blood
slowly trickling down from behind his ear. This gave place, as there
was a rustling in the entry, to a picture of the moments when there was
another terrible rustling as he dragged the body into the bath-closet
and strove so hard to hide all traces of the catastrophe.

Then the door slowly opened, there was the thumping of a couple of
sticks, and, in utter astonishment, Stratton was gazing at a
grey-haired, cleanly shaven, heavy looking man, whose pallid face had a
peculiar, inanimate aspect, and who came in, making no sign of
recognition, but walked slowly across the room to the easy-chair by the
fireside. He stood his two crutch-handled sticks by the mantelpiece,
and subsided into the chair with a sigh of content, and began passing
his hand over his smoothly shaven face, as if in search of stubble that
the razor had missed.

Stratton was astounded. He had expected an angry start as a precursor
to a fierce scene between them; but the man paid not the slightest heed
to either of the visitors. There was a dreamy look in his lack-lustre
eyes, and his heavy lips moved slightly, as if he were whispering to
himself.

The man seemed to be imbecile, and Stratton grasped now his friend's
object in bringing them face to face. It was to show him how little so
mindless a creature ought to influence the future of two people's lives,
and to consult with him as to what ought to be done.

Brettison watched his friend closely to see what effect the meeting had
u