wn a little way and came to a
disused landing-stage--four or five planks on rotting piles.
Kneeling there, I lowered my bleeding hand, to bathe it.
. . . As I knelt the body of Farrell came floating down-stream
and was borne in towards me by the eddy. It lodged against the
piles, chest uppermost, its white, wide-open eyes turned up to
the moon.

"--And I stared on it, Roddy, crouching there. _And I swear to
God it was not Farrell's face but my own that I stared into_.

"Yes . . . for I stared and stared at it--there, plain, looking
up far beyond me, sightless--until a swirl of the tide washed it
clear; and, as it passed out into darkness, it seemed to be
sinking slowly, slowly.

"I dragged myself away and ran back to the dead dog. Farrell's
overcoat lay close beside it, and his hat--which had fallen
short of the edge of the embankment as he pitched backwards.

"I picked up the coat, put it on, and felt in its pockets.
They were empty, but for a railway ticket. I picked up the hat,
and smiled to find that it fitted me. Lastly I stopped, lifted
the dog's corpse and flung it over to follow its master.
All accounts thus closed, I stepped out for the station and
caught the last train for Charing Cross.

"You know the rest.

"I borrowed your clothes, yesterday, and went down to the
inquest. They admitted me to see the body, on my pretence that
I had missed a relative and might be able to identify it.
Farrell had gone back to his old features; death had made up its
mind to hide the secret after all. . . . I am afraid that,
having overtaxed my strength, I broke down on the revulsion, and
may have given myself away.

"But it doesn't matter. That dog has done for me. Your Dr.
Tredgold is a good fellow and has nursed me very prettily back
from starvation. But I happen, as you know, to have studied
canine virus with some attention, and I have an objection to
rivalling some effects of it that I have witnessed. Before you
receive this, I shall be dead. I shall not trouble your
hospitable roof, and I am sorry to trouble Jephson. But the
searchers may find my body in Bushey Park.

"So long!--and, on the whole, so best. . . . I find, having lost
Farrell, that _I cannot do without him_.

"You have been endlessly good to me.