They had walked to the corner of the street.
‘Oh—ah—yes,’ answered Marston, quietly; ‘that confession. I promised it to you when you had silenced Heckett You have only silenced him for a week, and he will live a month. But, my dear fellow, I always like to treat an old friend well. See here——’
He pulled the newspaper out of his pocket and handed it to Gurth.
‘There you are, you see—there is your confession. The original is in the hands of the police. You’re fond of trips to America—I should try another at once if I were you. Good-bye.’
Marston turned on his heel, and walked rapidly away, leaving Gurth Egerton glued to the spot with horror. He read and reread the paragraph by the flickering light of the lamp. At any moment he might be arrested. The clue had been found by Marston. Why should it not be found by others? and then—He dared not think of it. He felt a choking sensation at his throat.
He would go back home at once and see Birnie, confide all to him, and take his advice. Birnie was the only friend he had in the world. He would go away again. There was nothing else for it. It seemed as though his wandering feet were to find no rest in this world. He was to be pursued everywhere by the shadow of the rash crime committed in his youth, and buried, as he fondly hoped, for ever.
And now the sea had borne witness against him. How had the confession he had made to the clergyman in the hour of imminent death been so miraculously preserved?
He could not think.
He only knew that a voice had cried out against him from the far-off seas, and that at the present moment his confession of the murder of his cousin was in the hands of the police.