He thrust his thin face close to mine. "You young fool, do you want everybody to be talking about you, and about her?" he demanded. "I was watching you in church to-day, and you looked like death itself. You don't know what these quiet country places are; there'll be whispers afloat to-morrow. Come, my boy--for her sake." I looked at him in surprise; I had not expected for a moment that he would have thought of that aspect of the case. I began to feel that I had been mistaken in the man, and that there was really something rather fine about him. I suppose he saw the effect of his words, for he shook me rallyingly, and began to drag me out of the room. "That's right, come along!" he exclaimed. "Keep a brave face, and no one can say a word. Come along!" "Stop a bit!" I urged, drawing back. "Who's going to be there?" "Only Hockley beside ourselves," said Fanshawe, examining his nails. "As a matter of fact, I want you to meet him again, and if possible get your revenge. I don't like that money hanging over." "That's not my fault," I reminded him. "I've asked you again and again----" "That's all right," he broke in soothingly. "I'll pay the money, and as much more as you like. This is going to be a lucky night for us both, Charlie; we're going to wipe off old scores." He went down the stairs before me. On the way he glanced up to see that I was following, and it happened that the light from a lamp on the staircase fell on his face. And I remember that I did not like its expression. CHAPTER IV THE KILLING OF THE LIE My story draws near now to that night of my life when all things for me were to change, and when I was to go down into the Valley of the Shadow, and come face to face with Death. I pray you hear me patiently, and believe that what I write is true of all that I felt and thought at that time. And God knows I have had years enough wherein to plan the writing of it--years of solitude and misery and exile! I know that I felt again at that supper party the same curious premonition of a storm that I had felt in the house of old Patton. There were dreadful silences between the three of us--silences from which my guardian feverishly awoke us, or that were broken in upon by some coarse remark from Hockley. For my part I said little; I seemed to be watching and waiting; and I know now that I was alert and eager to snatch at anything the brute might say, and make much of it. Always I seemed to remember that it was Barbara's wedding day; and that I stood outside, like some pale pure knight of old, to guard her memory, and to be faithful to what she had said to me. And I knew always that the very atmosphere of the room and of the men who were with me was antagonistic to any purity of thought or feeling. From the very first I would have you understand that, from that point of view, I was a doomed man.