From George and the office my thoughts drifted away over the whole of that crowded time referred to in the paper.  Brief and bald as the narrative was, it brought up before me a dozen vivid memories, which jostled each other simultaneously in my mind.  I saw again poor little Joyce’s tear-stained face, and remembered the shuddering relief with which she had clung to me as she sobbed out her story.  I could recall the cold rage in which I had set out for Marks’s flat, and that first savage blow of mine that sent him reeling and crashing into one of his own cabinets.

Then I was in court again, and George was giving his evidence—­the lying evidence that had been meant to send me to the gallows.  I remembered the cleverly assumed reluctance with which he had apparently allowed his statements to be dragged from him, and my blood rose hot in my throat as I thought of his treachery.

Above all I seemed to see the fat red face of Mr. Justice Owen, with the ridiculous little three-cornered black cap above it.  He had been very cut up about sentencing me to death, had poor old Owen, and I could almost hear the broken tones in which he had faltered out the words: 

“... taken from the place where you now stand to the place whence you came—­hanged by the neck until your body be dead—­and may God have mercy on your soul.”

At this cheerful point in my reminiscences I was suddenly interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

CHAPTER V

AN OFFER WITHOUT AN ALTERNATIVE

With a big effort I pulled myself together.  “Come in,” I called out.

The door opened, and the girl, Sonia, entered the room.  She was carrying a tray, which she set down on the top of the chest of drawers.

“I don’t know the least how to thank you for all this,” I said.

She turned round and looked at me curiously from under her dark eyebrows.

“For all what?” she asked.

“This,” I repeated, waving my hand towards the tray, “and the hot bath last night, and incidentally my life.  If it hadn’t been for you and Dr. McMurtrie I think my ‘career,’ as the Daily Mail calls it, would be pretty well finished by now.”

She stood where she was, her hand on her hip, her eyes fixed on my face.

“Do you know why we are helping you?” she asked.

I shook my head.  “I haven’t the faintest notion,” I answered frankly.  “It certainly can’t be on account of the charm of my appearance.  I’ve just been looking at myself in the glass.”

She shrugged her shoulders half impatiently.  “What does a man’s appearance matter?  You can’t expect to break out of Dartmoor in a frock-coat.”

“No,” I replied gravely; “there must always be a certain lack of dignity about such a proceeding.  Still, when one looks like—­well, like an escaped murderer, it’s all the more surprising that one should be so hospitably received.”