Katty paused, with her mouth open, expecting more.
'Tell him now; at once, woman; you don't know what delay may cost.'
He spoke impetuously, and with a bitter sort of emphasis, like a man in a hurry to commit himself to a course, distrusting his own resolution.
She was frightened at his sudden fierceness, and drew back into the hall and he with her, and he shut the door with a clang behind him, and then looked before him, stunned and wild, like a man called up from his bed into danger.
'Thank God. I'm in for it,' muttered he, with a shudder and a sardonic grin, and he looked for a moment something like that fine image of the Wandering Jew, given us by Gustave Doreé, the talisman of his curse dissolved, and he smiling cynically in the terrible light of the judgment day.
The woman knocked at the parlour door, and Lowe opened it.
'Who's here?' he asked, looking at Irons, whose face he remembered, though he forgot to whom it belonged.
'I'm Zekiel Irons, the parish-clerk, please your worship, and all I want is ten minutes alone with your honour.'
'For what purpose?' demanded the magistrate, eyeing him sharply.
'To tell you all about a damned murder.'