THE perspiration was rolling off Granice's forehead. Every few
minutes he had to draw out his handkerchief and wipe the moisture
from his haggard face.

For an hour and a half he had been talking steadily, putting his
case to the District Attorney. Luckily he had a speaking
acquaintance with Allonby, and had obtained, without much
difficulty, a private audience on the very day after his talk with
Robert Denver. In the interval between he had hurried home, got out
of his evening clothes, and gone forth again at once into the dreary
dawn. His fear of Ascham and the alienist made it impossible for him
to remain in his rooms. And it seemed to him that the only way of
averting that hideous peril was by establishing, in some sane
impartial mind, the proof of his guilt. Even if he had not been so
incurably sick of life, the electric chair seemed now the only
alternative to the strait-jacket.

As he paused to wipe his forehead he saw the District Attorney
glance at his watch. The gesture was significant, and Granice lifted
an appealing hand. "I don't expect you to believe me now--but can't
you put me under arrest, and have the thing looked into?"

Allonby smiled faintly under his heavy grayish moustache. He had a
ruddy face, full and jovial, in which his keen professional eyes
seemed to keep watch over impulses not strictly professional.

"Well, I don't know that we need lock you up just yet. But of course
I'm bound to look into your statement--"