“Mrs. Taylor is showing fatigue.  Would it not be better for you to say at once while she is yet in a condition to remain with us, whether you prefer to make a public statement of your case or leave it to unfold itself in the ordinary manner through the two impending inquests and the busy pen of the reporter?”

“First, am I under arrest?  Am I to leave this house——?”

“Not to-night.  An officer will remain here with you.  To-morrow—­after the inquest, perhaps.”

“I will make a statement.  I will make it now.  I wish to be left in peace to-night, to think and to regret.”  Then turning to her, “Ermentrude, a woman who has served me and my family for twenty-five years is at this very moment in the rear of the house.  Go to her and let her care for you.  I have business here,—­business of which I am sure you approve.”

“Yes, Carleton.  And remember that I shall be put upon my oath to-morrow.  The questions I am asked I must answer—­and truthfully,” she added, with a look as full of anguish as inquiry.

“I shall be truthful myself,” he assured her, and again their eyes met.

After a while she gave a stumble backward, which Mr. Gryce perceiving, held out his arm and assisted her from the room.

But once in the hall he felt the clinch of her fingers digging into his arm.

“Is there no hope?” she whispered.  “Must I live——­”

“Yes,” he interrupted kindly, but with the authority given him by his relations to this case.  “You have won his heart at last, and he speaks truly when he says that to you and to you alone can he look for comfort, wherever the action of the law may leave him.”

She shivered; then glowed again with renewed fire.

“Thank you,” she said; and they passed on.

XXXII

“WHY IS THAT HERE?”

They waited while he wrote.  A sinister calm quite unlike that which the victim of his ambition had shown under the stress of equal suffering if not equal guilt had subdued his expression to one of unmoved gloom, never to be broken again.

As word after word flowed from the point of his pen upon the paper spread out before him, the two officials sitting aside in the shadow watched for the flicker of an eyelash, or a trembling of the fingers so busy over their task.  But no such sign of weakening did they see.  Once only did he pause to look away—­was it into the past or into futurity?—­with a steady, self-forgetful gaze which seemed to make a man of him again.  Then he went on with his task with the grimness of one who takes his last step into ignominy.

We will follow his words as he writes, leaving them for the others to read on their completion.