," I
could not help exclaiming, with a returning touch of the old bitter
contempt, "you've undertaken to help his murderer to get off scot free.
You've been masquerading in the very clothes the poor fellow wore,
you've been using his luggage, trading on the likeness to him which once
won for you his regard, heightening it in every way by artificial means,
so that not only shall Carson Wildred, or Willis Collins, escape
suspicion, but that he may enrich himself on the dead man's millions.
You even set an hotel on fire to finish the whole fiendish plot with a
fine dramatic effect!"

The poor wretch, who had made such a wreck of his young life, was white
as death, and shaking like an aspen. I could see the beads of sweat
oozing out on his pale forehead. "For God's sake," he implored, "don't
say that to me; I can't bear it! Until you told me just now I swear to
you by all I hold sacred--by my sister's love, which I so little
deserve--that I never dreamed of Harvey Farnham's being dead. You may
believe me or not, as you like, but you're _her_ friend, so I
should be glad that you should believe. And, at least, you owe it to me
in common justice to hear what I've got to say.

"Collins always managed to keep his eye on me, and knew my whereabouts
and my doings, making me feel that at any moment he could come down on
me if he chose. I daresay he had other men in his power like that, men
whom he thought he might wish to make his tools at one time or other. I
didn't often hear from him, though I knew myself shadowed, and knew
also, only too well, whom I had to thank for it. You can't guess the
horror of the feeling, or how it got on my nerves. I fancied it would
drive me to madness or suicide one day, always knowing I was watched,
that I could never, try as I would, escape that Eye, which was really
Willis Collins's, spying me out across the ocean.

"Well, a cablegram came from him commanding rather than asking me to go
to England, saying that it would be much to my advantage to do so, and
that my fare and all expenses would at once be sent me in advance. There
was just a hint that I had better not refuse, which I understood as well
as if it had been a definite threat; and, anyhow, there was a certain
attractiveness in the idea of going home--I hadn't seen Karine or
England for so long.

"I didn't mean to let my sister know of my presence--I would have spared
her that--but I fancied myself standing among the crowd in the Park,