Loder swallowed his whiskey slowly.  His sense of overpowering curiosity held him very still; but he made no effort to prompt his companion.

Again Chilcote shifted his position agitatedly.  “It, had to be done,” he said, disjointedly.  “I had to do it—­then and there.  The things were on the bureau—­the pens and ink and telegraph forms.  They tempted me.”

Loder laid down his glass suddenly.  An exclamation rose to his lips, but he checked it.

At the slight sound of the tumbler touching the table Chilcote turned; but there was no expression on the other’s face to affright him.

“They tempted me,” he repeated, hastily.  “They seemed like magnets—­they seemed to draw me towards them.  I sat at the bureau staring at them for a long time; then a terrible compulsion seized me—­something you could never understand —­and I caught up the nearest pen and wrote just what was in my mind.  It wasn’t a telegram, properly speaking—­it was more a letter.  I wanted you back and I had to make myself plain.  The writing of the message seemed to steady me; the mere forming of the words quieted my mind.  I was almost cool when I got up from the bureau and pressed the bell—­”

“The bell?”

“Yes.  I rang for a servant.  I had to send the wire myself, so I had to get a cab.”  His voice rose to irritability.  “I pressed the bell several times; but the thing had gone wrong —­’twouldn’t work.  At last I gave it up and went into the corridor to call some one.”

“Well?” In the intense suspense of the moment the word escaped Loder.

“Oh, I went out of the room; but there at the door, before I could call anybody, I knocked up against that idiot Greening.  He was looking for me—­for you, rather—­about some beastly Wark affair.  I tried to explain that I wasn’t in a state for business; I tried to shake him off, but he was worse than Blessington.  At last, to be rid of the fellow, I went with him to the study—­”

“But the telegram?” Loder began; then again he checked himself.  “Yes—­yes—­I understand,” he added, quietly.

“I’m getting to the telegram!  I wish you wouldn’t jar me with sudden questions.  I wasn’t in the study more than a minute —­more than five or six minutes—­” His voice became confused; the strain of the connected recital was telling upon him.  With nervous haste he made a rush for the end of his story.  “I wasn’t more than seven or eight minutes in the study; then, as I came down-stairs, Crapham met me in the hall.  He told me that Lillian Astrupp had called and wished to see me.  And that he had shown her into the morningroom—­”

“The morning-room?” Loder suddenly stepped back from the table.  “The morning-room?  With your telegram lying on the bureau?”

His sudden speech and movement startled Chilcote.  The blood rushed to his face, then died out, leaving it ashen.  “Don’t do that, Loder!” he cried.  “I—­I can’t bear it!”