"First of all," he began, with impressive earnestness, "I want to emphasize the fact that when I snuffed out that man's life I was in imminent peril of my own. When I snatched up the candlestick, if ever a man had murder in his heart Felix Page had at that moment.
"The rest was automatic; I could no more have stayed the deadly blow than I can now hope to escape its consequences. Revolt from almost a lifetime of pitiless, persistent persecution filled me with an irresistible impulse to destroy and rendered my arm invincible."
I went with him, step by step, over the ground that is already familiar. Felix Page had ever been the thorn in his flesh.
"It wasn't as if I had a tangible enemy," he declared; "he would n't come out into the open and fight. His aims were always petty, he perpetually annoyed and harassed me by mean and ignoble ways, which I was obliged to bear with an assumption of ignoring them, or else lower myself to his level to meet them. Any bold, decisive stroke would at least have won my respect; but no, the cunning hound knew that my disposition could not forever turn aside his sly thrusts; he knew that, by degrees but inevitably, he was warping my nature, slowly but surely destroying all that was best in me.
"Well," bitterly, "he has succeeded. He has ruined me not only financially, but body and soul as well.
"Time and time again he flaunted in my face some old letters which my wife wrote when she was a mere girl. They were such as any artless, inexperienced girl might write to a man who has for the moment captured her fancy; but how could that be made clear to a public ever greedy for scandal? How would those letters read in the light of my wife's years and the dignity of her present position? Yet the scoundrel has threatened me times without number that he would scatter them broadcast.
"Then—the ruby: that was a crowning stroke. He deliberately stepped in and wrested it from my grasp simply because he in some way found out that I had set my heart upon it for my collection. It was as if he perpetually had his fingers upon the pulse of my desires and intentions; he seemed to divine and anticipate my every move.
"But I was soon reconciled to the stone's loss, and I would have remained so had it not been for that creature, Burke. When he put the idea into my mind that perhaps Page had no legal title to it, I was tempted—and I fell. He presented to me too good an opportunity to retaliate for me to let it pass.
"It was a foolish thing for me to do, going to his house that fatal Tuesday night; but there was no other way. Burke was willing to procure the stone from its hiding-place, but flatly refused to assume the risk of conveying it through the streets. Page was to be away from town that night, so in an evil moment I decided to take the chance.
"You know what happened. I failed to get the gem that night; your unrelaxing vigilance prevented Burke from getting at where he supposed he had hidden it, and at last the Burmese determined to make the attempt Thursday night. Friday morning I was to have again met Tshen-byo-yen to close the deal for the stone, when one of his henchmen notified Burke and me that the attempt had been a failure, that they had succeeded in securing only the replica. We both charged Burke with double-dealing."