Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/157

Rh prisoners, the former not only unmoved, but bored and even angry. I understood now how they felt. But there was the balance of my plan to be carried out; my original principle had never wavered; I believed the terror he had felt would make him run straight in future; the moment had now come, I thought, to tell him he was forgiven. So I left the door--he screamed, thinking I was going to open it--and crawled slowly over to him. Putting my hand on his shoulder, and using the gentlest, kindest voice I could find, I told him he should have another chance, but only one. All excitement had died out of me, I felt real pity, the old affection rose, I urged and begged him to "run straight" from this moment....

"But--there is a condition," I finished my sermon.

"Anything, Blackwood. I'll do anything you say." The tears were still hanging on his cheeks.

"You will sit down and write what I dictate."

We found a sheet of foolscap, and he sat down at the little desk, while I stood over him and dictated the words of a full confession. In writing it, Boyde's hand was as steady as that of a clerk making an unimportant entry in an office book. He came to the end and looked up at me enquiringly.

"Now write a duplicate," I said, "in your other handwriting, the one you meant to be a copy of Kay's."

He did this too; to an inexperienced eye the difference was extraordinary. I asked Grant to witness it with me, and when this was finished I waved the document in the other's face. "I shall keep this," I told him gravely, "and if ever you go wrong again, it will mean twenty years in prison." I do not think he knew what I knew at that moment; viz. that a confession signed "under duress" was not evidence in a court of law. He said very simply, gazing into my eyes: "You've saved my life, Blackwood. I shall never forget this day. My temptations have been awful, but from this moment I mean to run straight, perfectly straight." Words of gratitude followed in a flood. He shook my hand, begging to be allowed to help me back into bed. Rh