"I don't think I killed you out of any real hatred of you; it was only because I was afraid for myself. I saw that you, if only with your lips and your lying tongue, would harm this child, just as another man long ago had harmed the Barbara who was dead; and I felt that you would have to die for it, just as that other man had died. I did not kill you because I was afraid of what you might do; I killed you to save my own soul. Yes—that was it; to save my own soul."
He had been speaking very slowly, and quite without emotion; but now his manner suddenly changed, and he turned to me, and gripped my arm, and went on speaking eagerly, in a pathetic, wistful desire to make me understand.
"Yes, Charlie—I saw in that the only way to atone. Look at me, Charlie: an old man that has suffered, and behind whom lie so many years that are broken and unhallowed, and worse than useless. I felt that someday—quite soon—I might be called to meet my God; and that there—radiant, as we knew her years ago, Charlie, in her young and innocent beauty—there might rise up against me the woman we both loved. She's dead, but she had nothing to fear from death. I knew that when I died it would be different; there were accusing eyes that would spring alive with old fires to stare at me—accusing hands that would point at me out of the darkness into which I was going. And I prayed, or tried to pray, that God would show me some way—some sacrifice to be offered up in the old Bible fashion—that should atone. I pushed that thought away from me more than once—the thought of killing him; but I could not get rid of it. It was always with me—and that was why I tried to learn from you, who had done the thing once, what it was like, and how best to set about it. For I felt that if I could kill this man—if I could cry to the uneasy spirit of the dead woman—'This have I done to make atonement; this man have I killed, who would have harmed the child so like yourself in the old years that are gone'—why, then I felt that all would be well for me, and that I should not see always her accusing eyes in the darkness, or in my dreams when I slept."
I stared at him for what seemed a long time; it was difficult at first for my mind to grasp this thing, to realize what he had done. At last I asked: "Why have you come back here?"
"I could not stay away," he whispered. "I wanted to know what had happened—whether they had found him; I was even afraid that the blow might not have been strong enough, and that he might have crept out—bloody and horrible—to cry out what had been done, and to tell men who had done it. It has taken me a long time to get back here; I've been afraid."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going away—far away," he said, looking at me cunningly. "I haven't your courage, Charlie; I couldn't face what they might do to me if they found out anything about it. When I was coming here first to kill him I did not think of that; but now I can't bear even to try to understand in my own mind what the rope would be like about my neck—and the cap pulled over me—and the grey morning shut out—and then——No—no—I can't bear to think of that. I shall escape."
"I think you possibly may escape unsuspected," I assured him gravely. "I do not think there is any one likely to point a finger at you, and suggest that you did it."
"You think not, Charlie?" His voice was eager, and something very like a smile was on his face. "Do you think I might get away? I think so too; I'm going to try. And when you come to think of it, Charlie," he went on, with rising spirits—"it was bravely done—finely done. For I'm a weak old man—see these thin hands and arms of mine—and he full of life and vigour. Yet look at him now."