But cousin Joseph, thereafter, languished, had “nerves,” and lost his taste for toast and butter-milk. The doctor called in a colleague, and the consultation amused and excited the old man--he became once more an important figure. The medical men reassured the family--too completely!--and to the patient they recommended a more varied diet: advised him to take whatever “tempted him.” And so one day, tremulously, prayerfully, he decided on a tiny bit of melon. It was brought up with ceremony, and consumed in the presence of the house-keeper and a hovering cousin; and twenty minutes later he was dead... “But you remember the circumstances,” Granice went on; “how suspicion turned at once on the Italian? In spite of the hint the police had given him he had been seen hanging about the house since ‘the scene.’ It was said that he had tender relations with the kitchen-maid, and the rest seemed easy to explain. But when they looked round to ask him for the explanation he was gone--gone clean out of sight. He had been ‘warned’ to leave Wrenfield, and he had taken the warning so to heart that no one ever laid eyes on him again.” Granice paused. He had dropped into a chair opposite the lawyer’s, and he sat for a moment, his head thrown back, looking about the familiar room. Everything in it had grown grimacing and alien, and each strange insistent object seemed craning forward from its place to hear him. “It was I who put the stuff in the melon,” he said. “And I don’t want you to think I’m sorry for it. This isn’t ‘remorse,’ understand. I’m glad the old skin-flint is dead--I’m glad the others have their money. But mine’s no use to me any more. My sister married miserably, and died. And I’ve never had what I wanted.” Ascham continued to stare; then he said: “What on earth was your object, then?” “Why, to _get_ what I wanted--what I fancied was in reach! I wanted change, rest, _life_, for both of us--wanted, above all, for myself, the chance to write! I travelled, got back my health, and came home to tie myself up to my work. And I’ve slaved at it steadily for ten years without reward--without the most distant hope of success! Nobody will look at my stuff. And now I’m fifty, and I’m beaten, and I know it.” His chin dropped forward on his breast. “I want to chuck the whole business,” he ended. III IT was after midnight when Ascham left. His hand on Granice’s shoulder, as he turned to go--“District Attorney be hanged; see a doctor, see a doctor!” he had cried; and so, with an exaggerated laugh, had pulled on his coat and departed. Granice turned back into the library. It had never occurred to him that Ascham would not believe his story. For three hours he had explained, elucidated, patiently and painfully gone over every detail--but without once breaking down the iron incredulity of the lawyer’s eye.