"I stopped to listen--I was quite cool. Then I pulled out my bottle
of stuff and my syringe, and gave each section of the melon a
hypodermic. It was all done inside of three minutes--at ten minutes
to twelve I was back in the car. I got out of the lane as quietly as
I could, struck a back road that skirted the village, and let the
car out as soon as I was beyond the last houses. I only stopped once
on the way in, to drop the beard and ulster into a pond. I had a big
stone ready to weight them with and they went down plump, like a
dead body--and at two o'clock I was back at my desk."

Granice stopped speaking and looked across the smoke-fumes at his
listener; but Denver's face remained inscrutable.

At length he said: "Why did you want to tell me this?"

The question startled Granice. He was about to explain, as he had
explained to Ascham; but suddenly it occurred to him that if his
motive had not seemed convincing to the lawyer it would carry much
less weight with Denver. Both were successful men, and success does
not understand the subtle agony of failure. Granice cast about for
another reason.

"Why, I--the thing haunts me ... remorse, I suppose you'd call it..."

Denver struck the ashes from his empty pipe.

"Remorse? Bosh!" he said energetically.

Granice's heart sank. "You don't believe in--_remorse?_"