"That was the worst?"
"No, no; that is not what I was going to say; nor was that what I felt. I didn't know who you were; I didn't know what your quarrelling with him was about; yet, I felt that you were my friend."
"By what instinct?"
"I can hardly tell you; I suppose it was an instinct of self-preservation. You see, I was half paralysed with fear; all my remaining senses were bound up in the desire to escape from him--that was the only thing for which I cared--to escape."
"Then you did not hear what was the actual provocation?"
"No; I think I heard you say he was a thief; but I am not sure; even that may have been only in imagination."
"I did say he was a thief. He was trying to steal your money; he had stolen you; he had stolen many things in his time; he was a thief many times over. But I said more than that." He paused; again his mouth was twisted by that whimsical smile. "All these things which I am saying to you I should not say--at least, in such a shape--were it not that, placed as I am, I must take the fullest advantage of the only opportunity which is ever likely to offer. You and I are meeting for the first time and the last; we shall never see each other again."
"Why?"
Again the pause, and the smile.
"In courts of justice, out of England, sentimental reasons sometimes prevail; but, in England, no. The stronger the motive, the greater the crime. As when you and I bid each other, presently, good-bye I shall entrust myself to the safe-keeping of our excellent police, it is not unlikely that, in the book which contains my story, the last page is practically finished, and that the colophon is all that remains to be added." She was still; but not with the stillness which signifies acquiescence. He went on: "I say this in order that you may understand why it is that I think it desirable that you should be placed in possession of certain facts which you ought to know; even though I may have to do it with what seems brutal brusqueness. That, also, is why I'm anxious to take advantage of the only chance which I am ever likely to have to assure you that I did not do what I did without what seemed to me then, and seems to me still, to be sufficient provocation. He made a certain definite, hideous statement regarding your mother, and regarding you; and when I warned him to be careful, and withdraw it, he said that, so far from withdrawing it, he would proclaim it publicly wherever he went; and because, knowing the man, I believed that he would do so I killed him."