“I have been through a queer experience,” Francis continued presently, as he sipped his second liqueur.  “Not only had I rather less than twelve hours to make up my mind whether I should commit a serious offence against the law, but a sensation which I always hoped that I might experience, has come to me in what I suppose I must call most unfortunate fashion.”

“The woman?” Wilmore ventured.

Francis assented gloomily.  There was a moment’s silence.  Wilmore, the metaphysician, saw then a strange thing.  He saw a light steal across his friend’s stern face.  He saw his eyes for a moment soften, the hard mouth relax, something incredible, transforming, shine, as it were, out of the man’s soul in that moment of self-revelation.  It was gone like the momentary passing of a strange gleam of sunshine across a leaden sea, but those few seconds were sufficient.  Wilmore knew well enough what had happened.

“Oliver Hilditch’s wife,” Francis went on, after a few minutes’ pause, “presents an enigma which at present I cannot hope to solve.  The fact that she received her husband back again, knowing what he was and what he was capable of, is inexplicable to me.  The woman herself is a mystery.  I do not know what lies behind her extraordinary immobility.  Feeling she must have, and courage, or she would never have dared to have ridded herself of the scourge of her life.  But beyond that my judgment tells me nothing.  I only know that sooner or later I shall seek her out.  I shall discover all that I want to know, one way or the other.  It may be for happiness—­it may be the end of the things that count.”

“I guessed this,” Wilmore admitted, with a little shiver which he was wholly unable to repress.

Francis nodded.

“Then keep it to yourself, my dear fellow,” he begged, “like everything else I am telling you tonight.  I have come out of my experience changed in many ways,” he continued, “but, leaving out that one secret chapter, this is the dominant factor which looms up before me.  I bring into life a new aversion, almost a passion, Andrew, born in a tea-shop in the city, and ministered to by all that has happened since.  I have lost that sort of indifference which my profession engenders towards crime.  I am at war with the criminal, sometimes, I hope, in the Courts of Justice, but forever out of them.  I am no longer indifferent as to whether men do good or evil so long as they do not cross my path.  I am a hunter of sin.  I am out to destroy.  There’s a touch of melodrama in this for you, Andrew,” he concluded, with a little laugh, “but, my God, I’m in earnest!”

“What does this mean so far as regards the routine of your daily life?” Wilmore asked curiously.

“Well, it brings us to the point we discussed down at Brancaster,” Francis replied.  “It will affect my work to this extent.  I shall not accept any brief unless, after reading the evidence, I feel convinced that the accused is innocent.”