I went downstairs with Jane, who herself closed the door behind me. I gave her a very express good-night.

The remainder of that evening I can divide into four distinct stages, and I will adopt that course, taking them numerically.

The first stage was one of an almost overwhelming la.s.situde. I had an hour and a half and more to kill, and this la.s.situde came upon me suddenly as I walked slowly in the direction of Cheapside. I was in its power before I recognised its dangers. The man of action had suddenly sunk into abeyance with me, and, now that all was ready, all interest in my job had departed from me. The drudgery of actual performance was all at once beyond my powers. I could have gone on planning--I wished there had been more to plan--but now to carry out....

I collapsed suddenly.

Why (I asked myself wearily) trouble after all! Why trouble about anything? Life was short, yet already too long; its activities overlauded, its glories contemptibly little; why waste it in striving--nay, why live it all? Thirty years of it had brought me nothing; whatever another thirty years might bring me I should have to leave, and what would it matter after that whether I left much or little? Nay, were there really an Infinite Mercy to be "squared," it was perhaps better to cast myself before it helpless, naked, and without profit of my life. Why not end it all now? Why not kill, not Archie, but myself?

I turned with bowed head down the Minories, and something within me--I think it was that honest and beaten and b.l.o.o.d.y-minded Jeffries--whispered "The River!"

Presently I stood not far from the Tower, looking over a parapet into the dark water.

Yes, the river would settle it, that was the real way out. No more Agency clerkships and red-and-green-lighted apartments and sham betrothals on the other side of that parapet. And no more heartrending strivings to be free of the circ.u.mstances into which the world malignantly thrust me back the moment I raised my head. Striving? I realised all my striving in the past--Rixon Tebb & Masters', the Method examination, my commissionaireship, the wanton slander, my late perfected plan--and the thought that the years to come might be but repet.i.tions of all this. .h.i.t me like a hammer. I could not face it.

Then a detached sentence from one of the books I had read in the museum sprang up in my mind, and I started a little. The sentence was to the effect that a man who leaps into water always removes his hat before doing so. I did not remember that I had taken my own hat off, but there it lay, on the parapet, at my elbow.

Then, "Well, it will do to cover some other poor devil's head," murmured that tired Jeffries, "Get it over, and send that conscienceless young scamp to h.e.l.l with _your_ blood on his head. Somebody always pays, you know."

I removed my coat.

But that tired Jeffries never spoke unanswered, and these words were answerable. To make a hole in the water from sheer weariness was one thing, but to destroy myself to compa.s.s another's d.a.m.nation was quite a different one. The other Jeffries spoke.

"Why should you kill yourself for his sin? Each man must bear his own.

Nay, it is not committed yet and will not be if you are strong and play the man. Are you going to fold your hands and allow Evie...."

And at the thought of Evie I felt my sluggish blood creep again.

"You live in a practical world--be practical," continued that satanic James Herbert. "Prevention is better than cure. Even could he be punished afterwards, how much better off would _she_ be ... _then_? What right have you to bring this horror on her? He's selfish, ignorant, cruel--it would be dreadful at the best; but ... oh, think, man! Think of her now ... and to-morrow!"

"You only want her yourself," growled the other.

"You do--but that's not your motive!" cried the first. "You've overlooked all he's done to you--but this isn't to you! Coward--if you allow it! You won't allow it--to kill him would be better than to allow it.... Come; what time is it? She'll be preparing for bed by the time you get there."

I put on my hat and coat again.

This was my first stage.

The second began with my approach to Woburn Place.

The sitting-room with the pink-shaded lamp lay at the front of the house, but Evie and her aunt slept at the back. The sitting-room was in darkness as I pa.s.sed. I took a side street, and then a back cartway used by tradesmen. A high wall was in front of me, but by stepping back I could see the hinder part of the row--landing windows, bathroom windows, tiny conservatories, bedrooms--various oblongs at different levels, some blinded, some with lamps, many in darkness. Behind me was a mews, with horses that moved their feet in their litter and dragged at chains from time to time.

The tradesmen's entrances were unnumbered, and I do not know whether I hit on the right house; but that did not matter. I have mentioned my uncommon powers of mental visualisation, and these sufficed me. I fixed my eyes on a window; it might or might not have been Evie's; but to all intents and purposes it was. Somebody was retiring there, and the blind was lowered.

I saw no hand, no shadow on the blind. Only the light went out suddenly, and from the sound the blind made as it went up I judged it to be a spring blind. A piano had begun to play somewhere, but save for that all was silent.

It was the last of her single days.

To-morrow.

My heart was hideously alive again. What! Fold my hands--drown--and Evie as she still was up there.

Soft and terrible e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns began to break from my lips.

"Ah, would he? Would he? He would, would he?"

A clock struck half-past eleven.

This was my second stage.

I will begin the third at the moment when I pushed gently at the gate over the whitewashed area near the Foundling Hospital.

His light still showed over the leads, but the bas.e.m.e.nt was in darkness.

Evidently Jane had gone to bed. I felt in my pocket for his latchkey, mounted the three steps, and with infinite softness put the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened noiselessly, and I prevented the click as I closed it again by letting the little bra.s.s k.n.o.b gently back with my thumb. Then silently I began to mount his stairs, pa.s.sing on the way the locked box that had been put into my charge. I reached the top.

The first sound I had made since entering the house was my tap at Archie's door.

"Come in!" his tenor voice called from behind the door.

I entered.

At first he did not seem more than ordinarily surprised to see me; it was only after a moment that the oddness struck him.

"Hallo!" he began, in natural though not altogether cordial tones....

Then, "Hallo! I thought you were in Bedford by this time."

"Missed my train," I said.

He stared mistrustfully....

He had been preparing for bed. He had removed his collar and tie, and his red waistcoat was unb.u.t.toned. Through the c.h.i.n.k of his bedroom door I saw the light of his second lamp.

In his surprise at seeing me back again, he had half risen from his arm-chair. He remained, his hands on the arms of it, neither sitting nor standing, as he asked suddenly, "Who let you in?"

"Myself," I answered, in an even tone. "A little unceremonious, perhaps, but I knew Jane had gone to bed and didn't want to fetch you down. The fact is, I've found your latchkey."

"You've found my latchkey!"

"In my coat pocket. Don't ask me how it got there. Our two coats were hanging together one night, but even then I don't quite see.... Here it is anyway."

I put it on the table.

"That's a rum 'un," he said, slowly sitting down in his chair again, but keeping his eyes on mine. "So you came back to give it me?"

"I came back to give it you. Besides," my eyes were on his slender bare neck, "since I was coming back--I thought I'd like another word with you before----" I paused.

For a moment I could not understand the readiness with which he took up the thing I had not said. His lips had compressed a little.