The only result would be to strengthen Deede Dawson's position by the
warning, to show him his danger, and to give him the opportunity, if he
chose to use it, of disappearing and beginning again his plots and plans
after some fresh and perhaps more deadly fashion.

"Whereas at present," he mused, "at any rate, I'm here and he doesn't
seem to suspect me, and I can watch and wait for a time, till I see my
way more clearly."

And this decision he came to was a great relief to him, for he desired
very greatly to know more before he acted and in especial to find out
for certain what was Ella's position in all this.

It was Deede Dawson's voice that broke in upon his meditations.

"Ah, you're busy," he said. "That's right, I like to see a man working
hard. I've got some new things for you I think may fit fairly well, and
Mrs. Dawson is going to get one of the attics ready for you to sleep
in."

"Very good, sir," said Dunn.

He wondered which attic was to be assigned to him and if it would be
that one in which he had found his friend's body. He suspected, too,
that he was to be lodged in the house so that Deede Dawson might watch
him, and this pleased him, since it meant that he, in his turn, would be
able to watch Deede Dawson.

Not that there appeared much to watch, for the days passed on and it
seemed a very harmless and quiet life that Deede Dawson lived with his
wife and stepdaughter.

But for the memory, burned into Dunn's mind, of what he had seen that
night of his arrival, he would have been inclined to say that no more
harmless, gentle soul existed than Deede Dawson.

But as it was, the man's very gentleness and smiling urbanity filled him
with a loathing that it was at times all he could do to control.

The attic assigned to him to sleep in was that where he had made his
dreadful discovery, and he believed this had been done as a further test
of his ignorance, for he was sure Deede Dawson watched him closely to
see if the idea of being there was in any way repugnant to him.

Indeed at another time he might have shrunk from the idea of sleeping
each night in the very room where his friend had been foully done
to death, but now he derived a certain grim satisfaction and a
strengthening of his nerves for the task that lay before him.

Only a very few visitors came to Bittermeads, especially now that Mr.
John Clive, who had come often, was laid up. But one or two of the
people from the village came occasio