Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/372

 aggressive scintillations. Now the curious eyes rested upon a man who, after a moment in which to think, had visioned himself surrounded and overwhelmed by circumstances that were absolutely damning,—his own conduct of the last few minutes the most damning of all. His face was as white as the paper of the envelope which contained the irrefutable evidence. His eyes revolved uncertainly and then went questioningly from face to face in the circle round him as if for confirmation of the conclusion to which the logic of his own mind forced him irresistibly. In not one was that confirmation wanting.

"But," he protested wildly, and then his glance broke down. "It has come," he murmured hoarsely, covering his face with his hands. "It has come!"

His cross had come!

Some odd, disastrous chain of sequences which he had not yet had time to reason out had fixed this crime on him. By another equally disastrous chain of sequences, he must bear its guilt or be false to his confessor's vow. Especially must he bear it, if he would shield that doting mother who trusted him and loved him.

As if to hold himself together, he clasped his arms before him, and his chin sunk forward on his breast. As if to accustom his mind to the new view from which he must look out upon the world, he closed his eyes. The heaving chest, the tense jaws, the quivering lips, and the mop of hair that fell disheveled round his temples, all combined to make up the convincing picture of a strong man breaking.

Not one of those present, crass or sympathetic, but felt himself the witness to a tragedy in which a man of noble aspirations had been overtaken and hopelessly crushed by an ingrained weakness which had expressed itself in sordid crime.

Even the hard face of Searle softened. With the diamonds gleaming where they lay, he began mechanically to