"Awful things, yes," he whispered, nodding at the fire.
"Not," I said in self-defense, "that there's anything very awful, so far as I know, to be read in MY hands."
He turned his gaze from the fire to me.
"You aren't a murderer, for example?"
"Oh, no," I replied, with a nervous laugh.
"I am."
This was a more than awkward, it was a painful, moment for me; and I am afraid I must have started or winced, for he instantly begged my pardon.
"I don't know," he exclaimed, "why I said it. I'm usually a very reticent man. But sometimes—" He pressed his brow. "What you must think of me!"
I begged him to dismiss the matter from his mind.
"It's very good of you to say that; but—I've placed myself as well as you in a false position. I ask you to believe that I'm not the sort of man who is 'wanted' or ever was 'wanted' by the police. I should be bowed out of any police-station at which I gave myself up. I'm not a murderer in any bald sense of the word. No."