wretch that his once so happy wife
was losing her strength, her health and her peace of mind.

He followed the fleeing man and called to him several times to halt.
Finally Winkler half turned and called out over his shoulder: "You'd
better leave me alone! Do you want all Vienna to know that your
brother-in-law ought to be in jail?"

These words robbed Thorne of all control. He pressed the trigger under
his finger and the bullet struck the man before him, who had turned
to continue his flight, full in the back. "And that is how I became a
murderer." With these words Herbert Thorne concluded his narrative. He
appeared quite calm now. He was really calmer, for the strain of
the deed, which was justified in his eyes, was not so great upon his
conscience as had been the strain of the secret of it.

In his own eyes he had only killed a beast who chanced to bear the form
of a man. But of course in the eyes of the world this was a murder like
any other, and the man who had committed it knew that he was under the
ban of the law, that it was only a chance that the arm of justice had
not yet reached out for him. And now this arm had reached out for him,
although it was no longer necessary. For Herbert Thorne was not the man
to allow another to suffer in his stead.

As soon as he knew that another had been arrested and was under
suspicion of the murder, he knew that there was nothing more for him but
open confession. But he wished to avoid a scandal even now. If he
died by his own hand, then the first cause of all this trouble, his
brother-in-law's rascality, could still be hidden.

But now his care was all in vain and Herbert Thorne knew that he must
submit to the inevitable. Side by side with his old friend he sat on the
deck of the boat that took them back to the Riva dei Schiavoni. Muller
sat at some distance from them. The pale sad-faced woman, and the pale
sad-faced man had much to say to each other that a stranger might not
hear.

When the little boat reached the landing stage, there were but a few
steps more to the door of the Hotel Danieli. From a balcony on the first
floor a young woman stood looking down onto the canal. She too was pale
and her eyes were heavy with anxiety. She had been pale and anxious even
then, the day when she left the beautiful old house in the quiet street,
to start on this pleasure trip to Venice.

It had been no pleasure trip to her. She had seen the change in her
husband, a change that s