"How could you!" he cried. "How could you!" "It is horrible--horrible!" said the Professor. "I don't wonder at your feelings. Take me to your room." "But this shall not be left exposed!" cried Mortimer. He picked the breast-plate up and carried it tenderly in his hand, while I walked beside the Professor, like a policeman with a malefactor. We passed into Mortimer's chambers, leaving the amazed old soldier to understand matters as best he could. The Professor sat down in Mortimer's arm-chair, and turned so ghastly a colour that, for the instant, all our resentment was changed to concern. A stiff glass of brandy brought the life back to him once more. "There, I am better now!" said he. "These last few days have been too much for me. I am convinced that I could not stand it any longer. It is a nightmare--a horrible nightmare--that I should be arrested as a burglar in what has been for so long my own museum. And yet I cannot blame you. You could not have done otherwise. My hope always was that I should get it all over before I was detected. This would have been my last night's work." "How did you get in?" asked Mortimer. "By taking a very great liberty with your private door. But the object justified it. The object justified everything. You will not be angry when you know everything--at least, you will not be angry with me. I had a key to your side door and also to the museum door. I did not give them up when I left. And so you see it was not difficult for me to let myself into the museum. I used to come in early before the crowd had cleared from the street. Then I hid myself in the mummy-case, and took refuge there whenever Simpson came round. I could always hear him coming. I used to leave in the same way as I came." "You ran a risk." "I had to." "But why? What on earth was your object--_you_ to do a thing like that!" Mortimer pointed reproachfully at the plate which lay before him on the table. [Illustration: "MORTIMER POINTED REPROACHFULLY AT THE PLATE."] "I could devise no other means. I thought and thought, but there was no alternative except a hideous public scandal, and a private sorrow which would have clouded our lives. I acted for the best, incredible as it may seem to you, and I only ask your attention to enable me to prove it." "I will hear what you have to say before I take any further steps," said Mortimer, grimly. "I am determined to hold back nothing, and to take you both completely into my confidence. I will leave it to your own generosity how far you will use the facts with which I supply you." "We have the essential facts already." "And yet you understand nothing. Let me go back to what passed a few weeks ago, and I will make it all clear to you. Believe me that what I say is the absolute and exact truth.