"Leave me now," he went on, after a brief pause. "I must be alone for a little while. I will see you again later. But not a word to my wife about the verdict. Should she question you, tell her that the trial will not be finished till tomorrow. How strangely you look at me! Go, and fear nothing."
Sadly and lingeringly Rodd left the room. "There is one door of escape for him, and it rests with me to open it," he said to himself as he went. "He saved my life when we were boys; why should I not make an effort to save his now? Felix--Felix--dearer to me than any brother could have been--had I a dozen lives I would willingly sacrifice them all to save yours!"
Left alone, Drelincourt crossed to one of the windows which fronted the west, and flung wide the casement.
"Yes, to leave her--my Madeline--will in very truth be to drain death's bitter cup to the lees. If she and I could but walk hand in hand into yonder sunset, and so vanish forever from mortal ken--that would indeed be well!"
[CHAPTER XI.]
ONE STEP NEARER.
It was the early afternoon of the sixth day after Gumley's trial and conviction. In the library at Fairlawn, which just then he had all to himself, Mr. Wicks was planted with his back to the empty fireplace, a newspaper which had just arrived in one hand, and a paper knife in the other. As he stood thus he soliloquized aloud:
"Well, of all the rummy goes I ever heard tell of, this licks the lot! To think of Mr. Roden Marsh going and giving himself up as being the murderer of the first Mrs. Drelincourt! But I must say that I never did altogether approve of Mr. Marsh and his goings on. Not that he was what one might call stuck up, because he wasn't. But, for all that, he had ways about him which I couldn't stummick."
The turning of the door handle transformed him on the instant into a different being.
It was Mrs. Drelincourt who now entered the room.