did not come into the room at all, but
hovered outside the window, peering through the dirty panes, or sending
his whisper into the chamber in the whistling of the wind.

For Thorpe had come to stay, and Jones knew that he would not get rid of
him until he had fulfilled the ends of justice and accomplished the
purpose for which he was waiting.

Meanwhile, as the days passed, he went through a tremendous struggle
with himself, and came to the perfectly honest decision that the "level
of a great forgiveness" was impossible for him, and that he must
therefore accept the alternative and use the secret knowledge placed
in his hands--and execute justice. And once this decision was arrived
at, he noticed that Thorpe no longer left him alone during the day as
before, but now accompanied him to the office and stayed more or less at
his side all through business hours as well. His whisper made itself
heard in the streets and in the train, and even in the Manager's room
where he worked; sometimes warning, sometimes urging, but never for a
moment suggesting the abandonment of the main purpose, and more than
once so plainly audible that the clerk felt certain others must have
heard it as well as himself.

The obsession was complete. He felt he was always under Thorpe's eye day
and night, and he knew he must acquit himself like a man when the moment
came, or prove a failure in his own sight as well in the sight of the
other.

And now that his mind was made up, nothing could prevent the carrying
out of the sentence. He bought a pistol, and spent his Saturday
afternoons practising at a target in lonely places along the Essex
shore, marking out in the sand the exact measurements of the Manager's
room. Sundays he occupied in like fashion, putting up at an inn
overnight for the purpose, spending the money that usually went into the
savings bank on travelling expenses and cartridges. Everything was done
very thoroughly, for there must be no possibility of failure; and at the
end of several weeks he had become so expert with his six-shooter that
at a distance of 25 feet, which was the greatest length of the Manager's
room, he could pick the inside out of a halfpenny nine times out of a
dozen, and leave a clean, unbroken rim.

There was not the slightest desire to delay. He had thought the matter
over from every point of view his mind could reach, and his purpose was
inflexible. Indeed, he felt proud to think that he had been chosen as