n't believe me," he said. "You know what a prejudice there is
against me, and you will never persuade a jury to take my word against
hers. She will certainly say that I stabbed her with my own dagger; and
it was my dagger once: it has my name upon it."

"That is an awkward fact. If only we could prove that she brought it
with her, it would go a long way towards acquitting you."

"But we can't prove it. Then, you see, Mrs. Gorman says I had my hand on
the weapon as she was falling."

"We can easily shake her in that."

"And Hipkins says that I admitted the crime--called myself a murderer."

"We can shake that too. You said, 'Am I a murderer?' It was an odd thing
to say, but your nerves were unstrung. Men in such predicaments have
been known to say a great deal more than that."

"I assure you Larmer, my mind is so confused about it that I cannot
remember whether I said 'Am I' or 'I am.' I rather incline to think that
I said 'I am a murderer;' for I believed her to be as good as dead at
the time, and I certainly thought I had killed her."

"How could you think that? You are clear in your mind that you never
touched the dagger."

"Yes, but I touched the hand that held the dagger."

Larmer looked at his friend and client in a dubious way, as though he
could not feel quite sure of his sanity.

"My dear Walcott," he said, "you are out of tune--upset by all this
miserable business; and no wonder. You say you touched the hand that
held the dagger that stabbed the woman. We know you did; what then? What
moved the fingers that touched the hand that held the dagger, etcetera?
Was it a good motive or a bad motive, tell me!"

"That is just what I can't tell you, for I don't know. Perhaps it was an
instinct of self-defence; but I have no recollection of being afraid
that she would stab me. I had a confused notion that she was going to
stab herself; perhaps, I only got as far as thinking that the bodkin
would be better out of her hand."

"This is a touch of your old subtlety. I do believe you could work
yourself up to thinking that you actually wanted to hurt her!"

"Subtlety or no subtlety, these impressions are very acute in my own
mind. I can see the whole of that scene as plainly as I see you at this
moment. It comes before my eyes in a series of pictures, vivid and
complete in every twist and turn; only the motives that guided me are
blurred and confused. I grasped her wrist, and she struggled frantically
to shake m