"While I was talking with Mona, my wife entered. She immediately accused me of having feigned a visit to London in order to stay at home with Mona. The girl slipped out of the room, and my wife continued her ravings. She said that Jeringham had come home with her and was at that moment in the garden; there she swore to join him. I prevented her leaving the room, and ultimately she fainted. I ran out to call Mona, and found that she had left the house, no doubt to join Jeringham in the garden, to tell him that the secret was known. I also went into the garden to seek for Jeringham. To my horror I stumbled over a dead body, and hastily ran back for a light to see whose it was. Denis came with the lantern, and we found it was the corpse of Jeringham. He had been stabbed to the heart. "I would have given the alarm, but that Denis, quicker-witted than I at the moment, prevented me. He pointed out that it was well-known that I was on bad terms with Jeringham; that the unhappy man had been murdered in my garden; that my hands were red with the blood, and my clothes stained owing to handling the corpse; and said that I would be accused of the murder. I saw in a flash the peril in which I stood. I don't know if Denis suspected me of the crime, as he was not present when I first found the body, but he acted the part of a friend. We threw the body into the river and I made my preparations for flight. No one but Hilliston and Miss Pike knew that I had returned from London on that night, for my wife would keep silence, as I thought, for her own sake, and Mona had disappeared. I left the house in charge of Denis, and without a word to my wife, who had brought about this catastrophe, I sought safety in flight. It was cowardly, if you like, but I had no other resource. I would have been accused of the murder had I stayed, for the evidence was strong against me. I fled and trusted to chance to hide the crime.