. . "No, I can't imagine. It's possible that he never thought of that
at all. It sounds an extravagant way of putting it, Sir Ethelred, but
his state of dismay suggested to me an impulsive man who, after
committing suicide with the notion that it would end all his troubles,
had discovered that it did nothing of the kind."

The Assistant Commissioner gave this definition in an apologetic voice.
But in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to extravagant language,
and the great man was not offended. A slight jerky movement of the big
body half lost in the gloom of the green silk shades, of the big head
leaning on the big hand, accompanied an intermittent stifled but powerful
sound. The great man had laughed.

"What have you done with him?"

The Assistant Commissioner answered very readily:

"As he seemed very anxious to get back to his wife in the shop I let him
go, Sir Ethelred."

"You did? But the fellow will disappear."

"Pardon me. I don't think so. Where could he go to? Moreover, you must
remember that he has got to think of the danger from his comrades too.
He's there at his post. How could he explain leaving it? But even if
there were no obstacles to his freedom of action he would do nothing. At
present he hasn't enough moral energy to take a resolution of any sort.
Permit me also to point out that if I had detained him we would have been
committed to a course of action on which I wished to know your precise
intentions first."

The great personage rose heavily, an imposing shadowy form in the
greenish gloom of the room.

"I'll see the Attorney-General to-night, and will send for you to-morrow
morning. Is there anything more you'd wish to tell me now?"

The Assistant Commissioner had stood up also, slender and flexible.

"I think not, Sir Ethelred, unless I were to enter into details which--"

"No. No details, please."

The great shadowy form seemed to shrink away as if in physical dread of
details; then came forward, expanded, enormous, and weighty, offering a
large hand. "And you say that this man has got a wife?"

"Yes, Sir Ethelred," said the Assistant Commissioner, pressing
deferentially the extended hand. "A genuine wife and a genuinely,
respectably, marital relation. He told me that after his interview at
the Embassy he would have thrown everything up, would have tried to sell
his shop, and leave the country, only he felt certain that his wife would
not even hear of going ab