send you one or two if you like..."

Left alone, Granice cowered down in the chair before his
writing-table. He understood that Ascham thought him off his head.

"Good God--what if they all think me crazy?"

The horror of it broke out over him in a cold sweat--he sat there
and shook, his eyes hidden in his icy hands. But gradually, as he
began to rehearse his story for the thousandth time, he saw again
how incontrovertible it was, and felt sure that any criminal lawyer
would believe him.

"That's the trouble--Ascham's not a criminal lawyer. And then he's a
friend. What a fool I was to talk to a friend! Even if he did
believe me, he'd never let me see it--his instinct would be to cover
the whole thing up... But in that case--if he _did_ believe me--he
might think it a kindness to get me shut up in an asylum..."
Granice began to tremble again. "Good heaven! If he should bring in
an expert--one of those damned alienists! Ascham and Pettilow can do
anything--their word always goes. If Ascham drops a hint that I'd
better be shut up, I'll be in a strait-jacket by to-morrow! And he'd
do it from the kindest motives--be quite right to do it if he thinks
I'm a murderer!"

The vision froze him to his chair. He pressed his fists to his
bursting temples and tried to think. For the first time he hoped
that Ascham had not believed his story.

"But he did--he did! I can see it now--I noticed what a queer eye he