ff. I had
a premonition of evil--I tried and tried again to convince myself that
I was morbid and fanciful, but the thoughts and the fears would return
and each time with deeper and more sinister meaning. They crowded on me
as I sat bowed over my desk till I could bear them no longer and I got
up and walked to the window and, pressing my head against the cool
glass, stood looking with unconscious eyes through the rain into the
darkening court. How long I stood thus I don't know; every faculty was
absorbed in the one dreadful thought: "What if Miles has discovered the
murderer and is coming to tell me he is some one I know, a friend"--I
could get no further, just that train of thought, never finished, but
repeated and repeated, till cold and trembling I turned at last from the
window. As I did so I faced the detective; the hour had come. There was
just a moment of hesitation, and then I steadied myself.

"Well," I said, "what news."

"Let us sit down," he replied, "it is a long story."

I walked to my desk and resumed my chair, and he seated himself opposite
to me. By this time the room was in darkness, except for the flickering
light of the fire, and though I tried to study his face I could not do
so for the shadows.

"Well!" I repeated,--for he had not answered me,--"what news?" He leaned
forward and put his hand on my arm, but I shook it off and straightened
myself--"What news?" I said again sharply, though my voice was hoarse
and my words hardly articulate.

"I have discovered the murderer," he replied.

I tried to ask the name, but could not, and turned away to look into the
fire and watch with abstracted gaze the little yellow tongues of flame
as they darted here and there over the dark surface of the coal. They
seemed to me to be like tiny serpents at play and I smiled at their
antics, but underneath in the dull glow of the deep fire I found a
silent sympathy with my mood and there my gaze lingered while I thought.

The secret I had worked so long and hard to know was mine for the asking
and I was silent. I could feel Miles was looking at me and could read my
thoughts and thought me a coward, but what did it matter to me then? I
must think if I could think. A man may stop and wait and still not be a
coward--and so we sat in silence. At last something, perhaps it was
pity, made him offer a last chance of escape.

"I alone know the name of that man," he said; "and I need never tell
it."

I listened and I