simply, that he must give me his proofs and tell the members of his family that he had been mistaken—­that Alice’s first husband had really died before she married him.  If he agreed to do that he had nothing farther to fear from me—­I would remain dead forever.  ‘You can destroy proofs, but not facts,’ he muttered in reply to this.  I told him the facts were never likely to come to light if he entered into a compact of silence.

“He sat for a few moments as if contemplating the alternatives I had placed before him—­sat with one hand in his table-drawer, seeking for papers, I thought.  He desisted from doing this, and said quite suddenly, ‘The proofs are in the clock-case.’

“I had no suspicion.  He had once shown me a curious receptacle in the bottom of the clock-case, where he kept papers.  I went towards the clock, and was stooping over the drawer in the bottom of the case when I heard a swift footstep behind me.  I turned.  He was approaching with a revolver.  The secret of his disclosure and the open drawer were explained.  I suppose I owed my life to his dim sight, which compelled him to come so near.

“I sprang at him, and we struggled.  That struggle brought down the clock with a shattering crash.  Robert Turold and I were locked in one another’s arms, wrestling desperately for the revolver, when I saw the great moon face of the clock flit past my vision like the face of a man taking a header off a pier.  The crash startled Robert Turold.  His hand loosened, and I got the revolver from him.  As I tore it from his fingers it went off, and shot him.

“He backed away from me with a kind of frozen smile, then crumpled up and slid to the floor.  I bent over him.  He made a slight movement, but I could see that he was dying—­that he had only a very few moments to live.

“Coolly and rapidly I reflected.  The fall of the clock would be heard downstairs.  Flight!  There was a chance, if Thalassa had not returned.  My other instinct was to secure the proofs first, though they were really useless then.  I rummaged in the clock-case, and found a large envelope which I stuffed in my pocket.  The face stared up at me; the clock had stopped at a minute to nine.  I had an idea—­an inspiration.  I pulled the long hand down to the hour-half—­to half-past nine.  If I escaped from the house undiscovered, with only that half-stupid little woman downstairs, I would rush across the moors home—­call my servant on some pretext as soon as I got in, and ask her the time.  Then I should be quite safe—­could defy everybody.  Make it ten o’clock, then!  No—­too long to be safe.  It might be discovered.

“It is strange how quickly the brain works when the instinct of self-preservation is aroused.  These thoughts flashed through my mind in a kind of mental lightning.  In the briefest possible space of time I was on my feet and out of the room.  I locked the door on the outside, intending to take the key to defer discovery, but it slipped from my fingers in my haste, and fell in the dark passage.  I dared not stop to search, for just then I heard a sound—­or thought I did.  Panic seized me.  I feared I was trapped—­my escape cut off.  I flung precaution aside and went leaping downstairs to the door.  I fumbled for the door-catch in the darkness, flung open the door, and ran out into the night—­across the moors and home.