“In my service?” said Stratton blankly.
“Yes. Why did I do all this? Did I not know that, in spite of all your scheming and precautions, sooner or later the discovery must be made. Was I to let you live on with that horror waiting always at your elbow, driving you mad with dread, as I felt it was bound to do? It was for your sake, boy, that I fought as I did, and brought your victim out here.”
“But tell me—what did you mean to do?”
“How can I, when my own ideas were all vague and strange, as I sat there that night with this,”—he tapped his water-pipe—“and tried to hit on some plan; and somehow the horror passed away, and I felt no fear of the poor wretch lying there before me. I wondered at myself—that I could sit there so calmly smoking, in the face of all that had passed; but I did, for I said to myself, ‘What is death, after all, but sleep?’
“So I sat and thought, much as a man would under the circumstances—much as you did—and I felt that I had done right in this my first step toward saving you from the pain and suffering that was sure to come; for I had no doubt of the discovery. Then I argued that such a wretch was worthless, and that, even dead, he ought not to have the power to injure two people whom I loved. I knew that you meant to hide your—”
“Crime,” interposed Stratton.
“I never looked upon it as a crime. Let us call it your misfortune in slaying another in the effort to save your own life. There, then, was my position. I had gone so far; and, difficult as the task had seemed, the task was easy beside that which was to come.”
“Tell me what you did,” said Stratton hoarsely.
“I tell you I sat down to think,” said Brettison coolly, “and the more I thought the more impossible the task seemed to grow. I told myself that it must be done—that body must be concealed where no prying eyes could find it, and so that he who hid it could never be forced to bear the blame.
“If the poor wretch were discovered, it did not matter, thought I—no one would know him. Even if it was found who he was, it did not matter; for, I tell you, I felt no compunction, and I told myself that in time you would get over the shock and might be happy after all; for I said that you would have no greater cause for self-reproach than the soldier who slays an enemy to save his own life.