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342 "Yes, I think I do," agreed Mr. Magee softly.

"I have told you the whole story," Kendrick replied, "and yet it seems to me that still it is not all told. Why should Hayden have killed himself? He had lied to me, it is true, but life was always sweet to him, and it hardly seems to me that he was the sort to die simply because his falsehood was discovered. Was there some other act of cruelty—some side to the story of which we are none of us aware? I wonder." He was silent a moment.

"Anyhow, I have told you all I know," he said. "Shall I tell it also to the coroner? Or shall we allow Hayden's suicide to pass as the result of his implication in this attempt at bribery? I ask your advice, Mr. Magee."

"My advice," returned Magee, "is that you befuddle no pompous little village doctor with the complication of this unhappy tale. No, let the story be that Hayden killed himself as the toils closed in on him—the toils of the law that punishes the bribe giver—now and then and occasionally. Mr. Kendrick, you have my deepest sympathy. Is it too much for me to hope"—he