bout all.

"It was near midnight, as you know, and the room it happened in--the
study--had the brightest light of all. An electric lamp was blazing on
the writing-table at the window, and another from a bracket among the
books. The window was as wide open as it would go, the lower sash thrown
right up; it was just above the scullery window, which is half
underground, and has an outside grating. The sill was only the height
of one's chin. I can tell you all that now, but at the time I knew very
little until I was in the room itself. Thank you, I will take another
sip. It does me more good than harm to tell you. But you will find it
all written down."

Langholm set down the glass and replenished it. The night had fallen
without. The single candle in the farthest corner supplied the only
light; in it the one man sat, and the other lay, their eyes locked.

"I spilt the ink as I was creeping over the desk. That is an odd thing
to remember, but I was looking for something to wipe it up with when I
heard their voices upstairs."

"You heard them both?"

"Yes--quarrelling--and about me! The first thing I heard was my own
name. Then the man came running down. But I never tried to get away. The
doors were all open. I had heard something else, and I waited to tell
him what a liar he was! But I turned out the lights, so that she should
not hear the outcry, and sure enough he shut both doors behind him (you
would notice there were two) before he turned them on again. So there we
stood.

"'Don't let her hear us,' were my first words; and we stood and cursed
each other under our breath. I don't know why he didn't knock me down,
or rather I do know; it was because I put my hands behind my back and
invited him to do it. I was as furious as he was. I forgot that there
was anything the matter with me, but when I began telling him that there
had been, he looked as though he could have spat in my face. It was no
use going on. I could not expect him to believe a word.

"At last he told me to sit down in the chair opposite his chair, and I
said, 'With pleasure.' Then he said, 'We'd better have a drink, because
only one of us is coming out of this room alive,' and I said the same
thing again. He was full of drink already, but not drunk, and my own
head was as light as air. I was ready for anything. He unlocked a drawer
and took a brace of old revolvers from the case in which I put them away
again. I locked up the drawer afterwards, and