his side. He spoke in a dull, unemotional tone.

"Perhaps not, but while you robbed he slept. I was as gentle as you and
quieter, but in the midst of it he woke up, and I found his eyes wide
open, watching me. I saw his fingers stiffen--in a moment he would have
been upon me--so I struck him down. You heard him call and came back.
Yet we neither of us thought him dead. I did not wish to kill him.
Do you remember how we stood side by side and shuddered?

"Don't!" Douglas cried sharply. "Don't. I wish you would go away."

The man in the chair took no notice. There was a retrospective light in
his dark eyes. He tapped upon the table again with his skinny
forefinger.

"Just a little blue mark upon his temple," he continued, in the same
hard, emotionless voice. "We stood and looked at it, you and I. It was
close upon morning then, you know--it seemed to grow light as we stood
there, didn't it? You tried to bring him to. I knew that it was no
use. I knew then that he was dead."

Douglas reeled where he stood, and every atom of colour had left his
cheeks.

"I wish you would go away, or be silent," he moaned. "You will send me
mad--as you are."

Then the man in the chair smiled, and awful though his impassiveness had
been, that smile was worse.