“He looked in at my window.”

“He might have seen me enter.”

Then I told him what I had meant to keep secret.

“He asked for me in the village.  He was directed to my cottage.”

Ray had been filling his pipe.  His fingers paused in their task.  He looked at me steadily.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“The person to whom he spoke in the village told me so.”

“Then why did that person not appear at the inquest?”

“Because I asked her not to,” I told him.  “If she had given evidence the verdict must have been a different one.”

“It seems to me,” he said quietly, “that you have acted foolishly.  If that young woman, whoever she may be, chooses to tell the truth later on you will be in an awkward position.”

“If she had told the truth yesterday,” I answered, “the position would have been quite awkward enough.  Let that go!  I want to know who that man was, what he wanted with me.”

Colonel Ray shrugged his shoulders.

“My young friend,” he said, “have you come from Braster to ask that question?”

“To give you the ring and to ask you that question.”

“How do you know that the ring is mine?”

“I saw it on your finger when you were giving me wine.”

“Then you believe,” he said, “that I killed him?”

“It is no concern of mine,” I cried hoarsely.  “I do not want to know.  I do not want to hear.  But I tell you that the man’s face haunts me.  He asked for me in the village.  I feel that he came to Rowchester to see me.  And he is dead.  Whatever he came to say or to tell me will be buried with him.  Who was he?  Tell me that?”

Ray smoked on for a few moments reflectively.

“Sit down, sit down!” he said gruffly, “and do abandon that tragical aspect.  The creature was not worth all this agitation.  He lived like a dog, and he died like one.”

“It is true, then?” I murmured.

“If you insist upon knowing,” Ray said coolly, “I killed him!  There are insects upon which one’s foot falls, reptiles which one removes from the earth without a vestige of a qualm, with a certain sense of relief.  He was of this order.”

“He was a human being,” I answered.

“He was none the better for that,” Ray declared.  “I have known animals of finer disposition.”

“You at least,” I said fiercely, “were not his judge.  You struck him in the dark, too.  It was a cowardly action.”

Ray turned his head.  Then I saw that around his neck was a circular bandage.

“If it interests you to know it,” he remarked drily, “I was not the assailant.  But for the fact that I was warned it might have been my body which you came across on the sands.  I started a second too soon for our friend—­and our exchange of compliments sent him to eternity.”

“It was in self-defence, then?”

“Scarcely that.  He would have run away if he could.  I decided otherwise.”