at name
slipped from my lips on crossing the threshold of my little room! Anson
Durand, whom I believed innocent, whom I loved, but whom I was betraying
with every moment of hesitation in which I allowed myself to indulge!
what if the Honorable Mr. Grey is an eminent statesman, a dignified,
scholarly, and to all appearance, high-minded man? what if my patient is
sweet, dove-eyed and affectionate? Had not Anson qualities as excellent
in their way, rights as certain, and a hold upon myself superior to any
claims which another might advance? Drawing a much-crumpled little note
from my pocket, I eagerly read it. It was the only one I had of his
writing, the only letter he had ever written me. I had already re-read
it a hundred times, but as I once more repeated to myself its well-known
lines, I felt my heart grow strong and fixed in the determination which
had brought me into this family.

Restoring the letter to its place, I opened my gripsack and from its
inmost recesses drew forth an object which I had no sooner in hand than
a natural sense of disquietude led me to glance apprehensively, first at
the door, then at the window, though I had locked the one and shaded the
other. It seemed as if some other eye besides my own must be gazing at
what I held so gingerly in hand; that the walls were watching me, if
nothing else, and the sensation this produced was so exactly like that
of guilt (or what I imagined to be guilt), that I was forced to repeat
once more to myself that it was not a good man's overthrow I sought, or
even a bad man's immunity from punishment, but the truth, the absolute
truth. No shame could equal that which I should feel if, by any
over-delicacy now, I failed to save the man who trusted me.

The article which I held--have you guessed it?--was the stiletto with
which Mrs. Fairbrother had been killed. It had been intrusted to me by
the police for a definite purpose. The time for testing that purpose
had come, or so nearly come, that I felt I must be thinking about the
necessary ways and means.

Unwinding the folds of tissue paper in which the stiletto was wrapped,
I scrutinized the weapon very carefully. Hitherto, I had seen only
pictures of it, now, I had the article itself in my hand. It was not
a natural one for a young woman to hold, a woman whose taste ran more
toward healing than inflicting wounds, but I forced myself to forget why
the end of its blade was rusty, and looked mainly at the devices whi