Page:Haworth's.djvu/364

332 queer business. I went down as if I'd been shot. I have an hour and a half to steady myself before the next train comes in. Let me make the best of it."

"You'll go to-night?" said Haworth.

"There's a stronger reason than ever that I should go," he answered. "Let me get it out of the way and safe, for heaven's sake!"

Haworth squared his arms upon the table and leaned on them.

"Then," he said, "I've got an hour and a half to make a clean breast of it."

He said it almost with a swagger, and yet his voice was hoarse, and his coolness a miserable pretense.

"Ask me," he said, "how I came here!"

And not waiting for a reply even while Murdoch gazed at him bewildered, he answered the question himself.

"I come," he said, "for a good reason,—for the same reason that's brought me here every night you've been at work."

Murdoch repeated his last words mechanically. He was not quite sure the man was himself.

"Every night I've been at work?"

"Aye, every one on 'em ! There's not been a night I've not been nigh you and ready."

A memory flashed across Murdoch's mind with startling force.

"It was you I heard come in?" he cried. "It was not fancy."

"Aye, it was me."

There was a moment's silence between them in which Murdoch thought with feverish rapidity.

"It was you," he said with some bitterness at last,—"you who set the plot on foot?"