There was an awful pause.  He had told me the end of the tragedy so swiftly and in a voice so keyed to the terror of the scene, that I lay horror-stricken, unable to speak.  He buried his face in his hands, and between the fleshy part of the palms I saw the muscles of his lips twitch horribly.  I remembered, with a shiver, how I had first seen them twitch, in his mother’s house, when he had made his strange, almost passionate apology for fear.  And he had all but described this very incident:  the reckless, hare-brained devil standing on the bank of a river and letting a wounded comrade drown.  I remember how he had defined it:  “the sudden thing that hits a man’s heart and makes him stand stock-still like a living corpse—­unable to move a muscle—­all his will-power out of gear—­just as a motor is out of gear. ...  It is as much of a fit as epilepsy.”

The span of stillness was unbearable.  The watch on the little table by my bedside ticked maddeningly.  Marigold put his head in at the door, apparently to warn me that it was getting late.  I waved him imperiously away.  Boyce did not notice his entrance.  Presently he raised his head.

“I don’t know how long I stood there.  But I know that when I moved she was long since past help.  Suddenly there was a sharp crashing noise on the road below.  I looked round and saw no one.  But it gave me a shock—­and I ran.  I ran like a madman.  And I thought as I ran that, if I were discovered, I should be hanged for murder.  For who would believe my story?  Who would believe it now?”

“I believe it, Boyce,” I said.

“Yes.  You.  You know something of the hell my life has been.  But who else?  He had every motive for the crime, the lawyers would say.  They could prove it.  But, my God! what motive had I for sending all my gallant fellows to their deaths at Vilboek’s Farm? ...  The two things are on all fours—­and many other things with them. ...  My one sane thought through the horror of it all was to get home and into the house unobserved.  Then I came upon the man Gedge, who had spied on me.”

“I know about that,” said I, wishing to spare him from saying more than was necessary.  “He told Fenimore and me about it.”

“What was his version?” he asked in a low tone.  “I had better hear it.”

When I had told him, he shook his head.  “He lied.  He was saving his skin.  I was not such a fool, mad as I was, as to leave him like that.  He had seen us together.  He had seen me alone.  To-morrow there would be discovery.  I offered him a thousand pounds to say nothing.  He haggled.  Oh! the ghastly business!  Eventually I suggested that he should come up to London with me by the first train in the morning and discuss the money.  I was dreading lest someone should come along the avenue and see me.  He agreed.  I think I drank a bottle of whisky that night.  It kept me alive.  We met in my chambers in London.  I had sent my man up the day before to do some odds and ends for