conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post
as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his
attention: and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to
stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended
the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should
have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason
to conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and
the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I
to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had
proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact;
but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a
subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and
would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of
his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something
treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his
superiors in the Company, without first being plain with himself
and proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to
offer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the
present) to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in
those parts, and to take his opinion. A change in his time of duty
would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be
off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset.
I had appointed to return accordingly.