Closely watched by Grant and myself, Boyde had meanwhile moved out into the room, still without speaking a single word, and flung himself on the bed where he began to cry like a child. He sobbed convulsively, though whether the tears were of sorrow or of fear, I could not tell. We watched him for some time in silence. It was some minutes later that he sat up, still shaking with sobs, and tried to speak. In an utterly broken voice he begged for mercy, not for himself--he swore he didn’t “care a damn” about his “worthless self”--but for his mother’s sake. It would break her heart, if she heard about it; it would kill her. He implored me for another chance. His flow of words never ceased. If I would let him off this time, he begged, he would do anything I wished, anything, anything in the world. He would leave New York, he would go home and enlist ... but forgery meant years in gaol. “I am only thirty, and the sentence would mean the end of my life....” Perhaps instinct warned me he was lying, perhaps he over-acted, I cannot say; but the entire scene, the sobs, the impassioned language, the anguish in the broken voice, the ruin of the face I had once thought innocent, all left me without emotion. I was exhausted too. I had witnessed similar scenes between detectives and their prisoners, the former not only unmoved, but bored and even angry. I understood now how they felt. But there was the balance of my plan to be carried out; my original principle had never wavered; I believed the terror he had felt would make him run straight in future; the moment had now come, I thought, to tell him he was forgiven. So I left the door--he screamed, thinking I was going to open it--and crawled slowly over to him. Putting my hand on his shoulder, and using the gentlest, kindest voice I could find, I told him he should have another chance, but only one. All excitement had died out of me, I felt real pity, the old affection rose, I urged and begged him to “run straight” from this moment.... “But--there is a condition,” I finished my sermon. “Anything, Blackwood. I’ll do anything you say.” The tears were still hanging on his cheeks. “You will sit down and write what I dictate.” We found a sheet of foolscap, and he sat down at the little desk, while I stood over him and dictated the words of a full confession. In writing it, Boyde’s hand was as steady as that of a clerk making an unimportant entry in an office book. He came to the end and looked up at me enquiringly. “Now write a duplicate,” I said, “in your other handwriting, the one you meant to be a copy of Kay’s.”