“Granice!”

“I murdered him—­to get his money, as you say.”

There was another pause, and Granice, with a vague underlying sense of amusement, saw his guest’s look change from pleasantry to apprehension.

“What’s the joke, my dear fellow?  I fail to see.”

“It’s not a joke.  It’s the truth.  I murdered him.”  He had spoken painfully at first, as if there were a knot in his throat; but each time he repeated the words he found they were easier to say.

Ascham laid down his extinct cigar.

“What’s the matter?  Aren’t you well?  What on earth are you driving at?”

“I’m perfectly well.  But I murdered my cousin, Joseph Lenman, and I want it known that I murdered him.”

“You want it known?”

“Yes.  That’s why I sent for you.  I’m sick of living, and when I try to kill myself I funk it.”  He spoke quite naturally now, as if the knot in his throat had been untied.

“Good Lord—­good Lord,” the lawyer gasped.

“But I suppose,” Granice continued, “there’s no doubt this would be murder in the first degree?  I’m sure of the chair if I own up?”

Ascham drew a long breath; then he said slowly:  “Sit down, Granice.  Let’s talk.”

II

GRANICE told his story simply, connectedly.

He began by a quick survey of his early years—­the years of drudgery and privation.  His father, a charming man who could never say “no,” had so signally failed to say it on certain essential occasions that when he died he left an illegitimate family and a mortgaged estate.  His lawful kin found themselves hanging over a gulf of debt, and young Granice, to support his mother and sister, had to leave Harvard and bury himself at eighteen in a broker’s office.  He loathed his work, and he was always poor, always worried and in ill-health.  A few years later his mother died, but his sister, an ineffectual neurasthenic, remained on his hands.  His own health gave out, and he had to go away for six months, and work harder than ever when he came back.  He had no knack for business, no head for figures, no dimmest insight into the mysteries of commerce.  He wanted to travel and write—­those were his inmost longings.  And as the years dragged on, and he neared middle-age without making any more money, or acquiring any firmer health, a sick despair possessed him.  He tried writing, but he always came home from the office so tired that his brain could not work.  For half the year he did not reach his dim up-town flat till after dark, and could only “brush up” for dinner, and afterward lie on the lounge with his pipe, while his sister droned through the evening paper.  Sometimes he spent an evening at the theatre; or he dined out, or, more rarely, strayed off with an acquaintance or two in quest of what is known as “pleasure.”  And in summer, when he and Kate went to the sea-side for a month, he dozed through the days in utter weariness.  Once he fell in love with a charming girl—­but what had he to offer her, in God’s name?  She seemed to like him, and in common decency he had to drop out of the running.  Apparently no one replaced him, for she never married, but grew stoutish, grayish, philanthropic—­yet how sweet she had been when he had first kissed her!  One more wasted life, he reflected...