"My voice trembled with hate as I announced him and showed him into the inner room. Then I closed the door and listened. He was uneasy about his Will--the fool--and did not know that all his possessions would necessarily become his son's. In my heart I laughed at his ignorance; but I learnt enough--enough to wait patiently for years and finally to track Ezekiel Trenoweth to his death. "It was about this time that I fell in love. In this as in everything through life I have been cursed with the foulest luck, but in this as in everything else my patience has won in the end. Lucy Luttrell loved another man called Railton--John Railton. He was another fool--you are all fools--but she married him and had a daughter. I wonder if you can guess who that daughter was?" He broke off and looked at me with fiendish malice. "You hound!" I cried, "she was Janet Railton--Claire Luttrell; and you murdered her father as you say Amos Trenoweth murdered yours." "Right," he answered coolly. "Quite right. Oh, the arts by which I enticed that man to drink and then to crime! Even now I could sit and laugh over them by the hour. Why, man, there was not a touch of guile in the fellow when I took him in hand, and yet it was he that afterwards took your father's life. He tried it once in Bombay and bungled it sadly: he did it neatly enough, though, on the jib-boom of the _Belle Fortune_. I lent him the knife: I would have done it myself, but Railton was nearer; and besides it is always better to be a witness." What _was_ that rustling sound behind the partition? Colliver did not hear it, at any rate, but went on with his tale, and though his eyes were dancing flames of hate his voice was calm now as ever. "I had stolen half the clasp beforehand from the cabin floor where that stupendous idiot, Ezekiel Trenoweth, had dropped it. Railton caught him before he dropped, but I did not know he had time to get the box away, for just then a huge wave broke over us and before the next we both jumped for the Rock. I thought that Railton must have been sucked back, for I only clung on myself by the luckiest chance. It was pitch-dark and impossible to see. I called his name, but he either could not hear for the roar, or did not choose to answer, so after a bit I stopped. I thought him dead, and he no doubt thought me dead, until we met upon Dead Man's Rock. "Shall I finish? Oh, yes, you shall hear the whole story. After the inquest I escaped back to Plymouth, told Lucy that her husband had been drowned at sea, and finally persuaded her to leave Plymouth and marry me. So I triumphed there, too: oh, yes, I have triumphed throughout." "You hound!" I cried. He laughed a low musical laugh and went on again--