“What are you going to do with it?”

“Leave that to me,” said he.

What was in his mind I did not know, but, for the moment, I was very glad to leave it to him.  In a vague way I comforted myself with the reflection that Jaffery was a specialist in crises.  It was his job, as he would have said.  In the ordinary affairs of life he conducted himself like an overgrown child.  In time of cataclysm he was a professional demigod.  He reassured me further.

“That’s where I come in.  Don’t worry about it any more.”

“All right,” said I.

And for a while he said nothing and stared at the fire.  Presently he broke the silence.

“What was the poor devil playing at?” he repeated.  “What, in God’s name?”

And then I told him.  It took a long time.  I was still in the cold grip of the horror of that condemned cell, and my account was none too consecutive.  There was also some argument and darting up side-tracks, which broke the continuity.  It was also difficult to speak of Adrian in terms that did not tear our hearts.  As a despoiler of the dead, his offence was rank.  But we had loved him; and we still loved him, and he had expiated his crime by a year’s unimaginable torture.

Often have I said that I thought I knew my Adrian, but did not.  Least of all did I know my Adrian then, as I sat paralysed by the revelation of his fraud.  Even now, as I write, looking at things more or less in perspective, I cannot say that I know my Adrian.  With all his faults, his poses, his superficialities, his secrecies, his egotisms, I never dreamed of him as aught but a loyal and honourable gentleman.  When I think of him, I tremble before the awful isolation of the human soul.  What does one man know of his brother?  Yes; the coldest of poets was right:  “We mortal millions live alone.”  It is only the unconquerable faith in Humanity by which we live that saves us from standing aghast with conjecture before those who are so near and dear to us that we feel them part of our very selves.

Adrian was dead and could not speak.  What was it that in the first place made him yield to temptation?  What kink in the brain warped his moral sense?  God is his judge, poor boy, not I. Tom Castleton had put the manuscript of “The Diamond Gate” into his hands.  Undoubtedly he was to arrange for its publication.  Castleton’s appointment to the professorship in Australia had been a sudden matter, as I well remember, necessitating a feverish scramble to get his affairs in order before he sailed.  Why did not Adrian in the affectionate glow of parting send the manuscript straight off to a publisher?  At first it was merely a question of despatching a parcel and writing a covering letter.  Why were not parcel and letter sent?  Merely through the sheer indolence that was characteristic of Adrian.  Then came the news of Castleton’s death.  From that moment the poison of temptation must have begun to work.  For years, in his easy way, he