But he was silent for some time first, sitting back with the tips of his fingers joined, as if collecting his thoughts. "You remember that morning--how I came to say good-bye?" "Yes, of course." "I started, and then found that I had forgotten my lens. I hurried back, and had just entered my room when I heard voices plainly in yours. My book-closet door was open, that of your bath room must have been ajar. I did not want to hear, but the angry tones startled me, and the words grew so fierce--you neither of you thought of how you raised your voices in your excitement--that I became alarmed, and was about to hurry round to your room, when a few words came to my ears quite plainly, and, in spite of its being dishonourable, I, in my dread that you were in danger, hurried into the book-closet and was drawn to the thin, loose panel at the end. "There I was enchained; I could not retreat, for I heard so much of the piteous position in which you were placed. My mind filled in the blanks, and I grasped all. "I need not repeat all you know--only tell you that, unable to master my curiosity, I placed my eye to one of the cracks in the old panelling, and could see the man's face--her husband's features--and I saw him glance again and again at the money, and felt that he meant to have it, though you seemed ignorant of the fact; and, dreading violence, I drew back to go for help. But I could not leave. It meant a terrible _expose_ and untold horror for your promised wife. I tell you I could not stir, and the fact of my being a miserable eavesdropper died out in the terrible climax you had reached." Brettison paused to wipe his brow, wet with a dew begotten by the agony of his recollections, before he continued: "I stayed there then, and watched and listened, almost as near as if I had been a participator in the little life drama which ensued. There, I was with you in it all, boy--swayed by your emotions, but ready to cry out upon you angrily when I saw you ready to listen to the wretch's miserable proposals, and as proud when I saw your determination to sacrifice your desires and make a bold stand against what, for your gratification, must have meant finally a perfect hell for the woman you loved. Then, in the midst of my excitement, there came the final struggle, as you nobly determined to give the scoundrel up to the fate he deserved so well. It was as sudden to me as it was horrible. I saw the flash of the shot, and felt a pang of physical pain, as, through the smoke, I dimly saw you stagger. Then, while I stood there paralysed, I saw you fly at him as he raised his pistol to fire again, the struggle for the weapon, which you struck up as he drew the trigger." "Yes," said Stratton, "I struck up the pistol as he drew the trigger; but who would believe--who would believe?" "And then I saw him reel and fall, and there before me he lay, with the blood slowly staining the carpet, on the spot where I had so often sat."