He put his hand on my arm.

"I felt perfectly calm. Wasn't that strange?"

I nodded.

"There was a train from town reaching Ashdridge Station at nine o'clock
at night. I took it. I didn't care to go to Inley Station, where
everybody would know me, and wonder what I was up to. I didn't take any
luggage. My man asked if he should pack, and I said 'No.' I didn't dine.
I was at Pad-dington three-quarters of an hour before the train was
due to start. At last it came in to the platform. Going down I read the
evening papers just like any man going home from business. Soon after we
got away from London I saw there was rain on the carriage windows. That
seemed to me right. We were a little late at Ashdridge. It was still
wet, and I had my coat collar turned up. I don't believe they recognised
me there. I set out to walk to Inley."

"What did you mean to do?"

"I told you before."

I looked into his face, and believed him. Then I thought of Lady Inley's
childish, delicate beauty, of her slightly affected manner, the manner
of a woman who has always been spoilt, whose paths have been made very
smooth. And here she was living, apparently happily, with a man who had
deliberately travelled down in the night to kill her. How ignorant we
are!

"You are condemning me," Inley said, with a touch of hot anger.

"I was only thinking----"

"Yes?"

"That we don't know each other much in the greatest intimacy."

"That's what I thought then."

He said that in a way which suddenly put me on his side. He must
have seen the change in my feelings, for he went on, with his former
unreserve:

"I walked fast in the dark. I didn't think very much, but I remember
that all the trees--there's a lot of woodland, you know, between
Ashdridge and Inley--seemed alive. Everything seemed to me to be alive
that night. I've never had that sensation before or since."

I realised what the condition of the man had been when he said that, as
if I were a doctor and a patient had told me the symptom which put me in
possession of his malady.

"When I reached Inley it was late, and the long village street was
deserted. There were lights in the inn and in the schoolmaster's house,
but there were no people about. I got through without meeting a soul,
and came on towards the gates of the Abbey."

"You meant to go into the house?"

"Yes. I was sure--somehow I was sure; but I intended to see before I
acted, merely for my own justification. But I was