. I acknowledge it, Rita, and shall meet only my just
punishment if you deny me in the future both your sympathy and regard.
But you must let me assure you and these gentlemen also, one of whom can
make it very unpleasant for me, that consideration for you, much more
than any miserable anxiety about myself, lay at the bottom of what must
strike you all as an act of unpardonable cowardice. From the moment I
learned of this woman's murder in the alcove, where I had visited her,
I realized that every one who had been seen to approach her within
a half-hour of her death would be subjected to a more or less rigid
investigation, and I feared, if her gloves were found in my possession,
some special attention might be directed my way which would cause you
unmerited distress. So, yielding to an impulse which I now recognize as
a most unwise, as well as unworthy one, I took advantage of the bustle
about us, and of the insensibility into which you had fallen, to tuck
these miserable gloves into the bag I saw lying on the floor at your
side. I do not ask your pardon. My whole future life shall be devoted to
winning that; I simply wish to state a fact."

"Very good!" It was the inspector who spoke; I could not have uttered a
word to save my life. "Perhaps you will now feel that you owe it to this
young lady to add how you came to have these gloves in your possession?"

"Mrs. Fairbrother handed them to me."

"Handed them to you?"

"Yes, I hardly know why myself. She asked me to take care of them for
her. I know that this must strike you as a very peculiar statement.
It was my realization of the unfavorable effect it could not fail to
produce upon those who beard it, which made me dread any interrogation
on the subject. But I assure you it was as I say. She put the gloves
into my hand while I was talking to her, saying they incommoded her."

"And you?"

"Well, I held them for a few minutes, then I put them in my pocket, but
quite automatically, and without thinking very much about it. She was
a woman accustomed to have her own way. People seldom questioned it, I
judge."

Here the tension about my throat relaxed, and I opened my lips to speak.
But the inspector, with a glance of some authority, forestalled me.

"Were the gloves open or rolled up when she offered them to you?"

"They were rolled up."

"Did you see her take them off?"

"Assuredly."

"And roll them up?"

"Certainly."

"After which she passed them over to