lost sight o' the other for years, an' meantime picked up with a
little religion, an' made oath with hisself that all the profits o'
the job (for there were profits) should come into innocent hands--
You catch on to this?"

I nodded.

"Well, then"--he leant forward, his palm resting amid a bed of
nettles. He did not appear to feel their sting, although, while he
spoke, I saw the bark of his hand whiten slowly with blisters--
"well, then, you can't go for to argue with me that the A'mighty
would go for to strike the chap that repented by means o' the chap
that didn'. Tisn' reasonable nor religious to think such a thing--is
it now?"

"He might punish the one first," said I, judicially, "and keep the
other--the wicked man--for a worse punishment in the end. A great
deal," I added, "might depend on what sort of crime they'd committed.
If 'twas a murder, now--"

"Murder?" He caught me up sharply, and his eyes turned from watching
me, to throw a quick glance back along the footpath, then fastened
themselves on the horizon. "Who's a-talkin' of any such thing?"

"I was putting a case, sir--putting it as bad as possible.
'Murder will out,' they say; but with smaller crimes it may be
different."

"Murder?" He sprang up and began to pace to and fro. "How came that
in your head, eh?" He threw me a furtive sidelong look, and halted