feet at once, and noting that he was dazed by the shock of
my presence, I slid quietly between him and the door.

The movement roused him. Turning upon me with a sarcastic smile in which
was concentrated the bitterness of years, he briefly said:

"So I am caught! Well, there has to be an end to men as well as to
things, and I am ready for mine. She turned me away from her door
to-day, and after the hell of that moment I don't much fear any other."

"You had better not talk," I admonished him. "All that falls from you
now will only tell against you on your trial."

He broke into a harsh laugh. "And do you think I care for that? That
having been driven by a woman's perfidy into crime I am going to bridle
my tongue and keep down the words which are my only safeguard from
insanity? No, no; while my miserable breath lasts I will curse her, and
if the halter is to cut short my words, it shall be with her name
blistering my lips."

I attempted to speak, but he would not give me an opportunity. The
passion of weeks had found vent and he rushed on recklessly:

"I went to her house to-day. I wanted to see her in her widow's weeds; I
wanted to see her eyes red with weeping over a grief which owed its
bitterness to me. But she would not grant me admittance. She had me
thrust from her door, and I shall never know how deeply the iron has
sunk into her soul. But"--and here his face showed a sudden change--"I
shall see her if I am tried for murder. She will be in the courtroom--on
the witness stand----"

"Doubtless," I interjected; but his interruption came quickly and with
vehement passion.

"Then I am ready. Welcome trial, conviction, death, even. To confront
her eye to eye is all I wish. She shall never forget it, never!"

"Then you do not deny----" I began.

"I deny nothing," he returned, and held out his hands with a grim
gesture. "How can I, when there falls from everything I touch the
devilish thing which took away the life I hated?"

"Have you anything more to say or do before you leave these rooms?" I
asked.

He shook his head, and then, bethinking himself, pointed to the roll of
paper which he had flung on the table.

"Burn that!" he cried.

I took up the roll and looked at it. It was the manuscript of a poem in
blank verse.

"I have been with it into a dozen newspaper and magazine offices," he
explained with great bitterness. "Had I succeeded in getting a
publisher for it I might have forgotten my wrongs