thrusts of that knife."

"Yes; that's true.--Yes, I'll tell you about that, you and Arthur--if
you'd care to hear?"

"That's what I'm here for," Hastings said, settling in his chair. He was
thinking: "He didn't expect this. He's unprepared!"

Sloane, who had been on the point of resenting this unbelievable attack
on his friend, was struck dumb by Wilton's calm acknowledgment of the
charge. From long habit, he took the cap off the smelling-salts with
which he had been toying when Hastings came in, but his shaking hand
could not lift the bottle to his nose. Wilton guilty of a murder, years
ago! He drew a long, shuddering breath and huddled in his chair.

Wilton rose clumsily and walked heavily to the door opening into the
hall. He put his hand on the knob but did not turn it. He repeated the
performance at the door opening into Sloane's room. In all this he was
unconscionably slow, moving in the manner of a blind man, feeling his
way about and fumbling both knobs.

When he came back to the table, his shoulders were hunched to the front
and downward, crowding his chest. His face looked larger, each separate
feature of it throbbing coarsely to the pumping of his heart. Pink
threads stood out on the white of his eyeballs. When the back of his
neck pressed against his collar, the effect was to give the lower half
of the back of his head an odd appearance of inflation or puffiness.

Hastings had never seen a man struggle so to contain himself.

"Suffering angels!" Sloane sympathized shrilly. "What's the matter,
Tom?"

"All right--it's all right," he assured, his voice still low, but so
resonant and harsh that it sounded like the thrumming of a viol string.

He seated himself, moving his chair several times, adjusting it to a
proper angle to the table. In the end, he sat close to the table rim,
hunched heavily on his elbows, and looked straight at Hastings.

"But, since you've been to Pursuit, what do you imply, or say?" he
asked, the words scraping, as though his throat had been roughened with
a file.

"That you killed Mildred Brace," Hastings answered, also leaning
forward, to give the accusation weight.

"I! I killed her!" Wilton's teeth went together with a sharp click; the
table sagged under his weight. "I deny it. I deny it!" He ripped out an
oath. "This man's crazy, Arthur! He's dragged up a mistake, a tragedy,
of my youth, and now has the effrontery to use it as a reason for
suspecting me of murder!"

"E