A few minutes more, and Dr. Danvers entered the little apartment.

“My dear sir,” said he, gravely and earnestly, as he grasped the cold hand of Marston, “I am rejoiced to see you.  I have matters of great moment and the strangest mystery to lay before you.”

“I dare say—­I was sure—­that is, I suspected so much,” answered Marston, breathing fast, and looking very pale.  “I heard at the prison that the murderer, Merton, was fast dying, and now is in an unconscious state; and from the physician, that you had seen him, at his urgent entreaty, last night.  My mind misgives me, sir, I fear I know not what.  I long, yet dread, to hear the wretched man’s confession.  For God’s sake tell me, does it implicate anybody else in the guilt?”

“No; no one specifically; but it has thrown a hideous additional mystery over the occurrence.  Listen to me, my dear sir, and the whole narrative, as he stated it to me, shall be related now to you,” said Dr. Danvers.

Marston had closed the door carefully, and they sate down together at the further end of the apartment.  Marston, breathless and ghastly pale; his lips compressed—­his brows knit—­and his dark, dilated gaze fixed immovably upon the speaker.  Dr. Danvers, on the other hand, tranquil and solemn, and with, perhaps, some shade of awe overcasting the habitual sweetness of his countenance.

“His confession was a strange one,” renewed Dr. Danvers, shaking his head gravely.  “He said that the first idea of the crime was suggested by Sir Wynston’s man accidentally mentioning, a few days after their arrival, that his master slept with his bank-notes, to the amount of some hundreds of pounds, in a pocketbook under his pillow.  He declared that as the man mentioned this circumstance, something muttered the infernal suggestion in his ear, and from that moment he was the slave of that one idea; it was ever present with him.  He contended against it in vain; he dreaded and abhorred it; but still it possessed him; he felt his power of resistance yielding.  This horrible stranger which had stolen into his heart, waxed in power and importunity, and tormented him day and night.  He resolved to fly from the house.  He gave notice to you and Mrs. Marston of his intended departure; but accident protracted his stay until that fatal night which sealed his doom.  The influence which had mastered him forced him to rise from his bed, and take the knife—­the discovery of which afterwards helped to convict him—­and led him to Sir Wynston’s chamber; he entered; it was a moonlight night.”

Here the clergyman, glancing round the room, lowered his voice, and advanced his lips so near to Marston, that their heads nearly touched.  In this tone and attitude he continued his narrative for a few minutes.  At the end of this brief space, Marston rose up slowly, and with a movement backward, every feature strung with horror, and saying, in a long whisper, the one word, “yes,” which seemed like the hiss of a snake before he makes his last deadly spring.  Both were silent for a time.  At last Marston broke out with hoarse vehemence.