H. B. Marriott Watson

“ I replied simply, “and I am willing.”
“You are a good man,” she remarked softly, and passed out into the hall. In the pretty drawing-room she stopped and looked at me. “I will accept your offer,” she said. “You shall take it away. Have you any money? Stay, here is a sovereign, which will suffice perhaps.” She pressed a piece of gold into my hands, and feverishly turned away. At the door she paused, and took a step again towards me. “There is a chest that stands in the hall,” she whispered, her eyes straining eagerly into mine, her pallid face bent close to me. ”

“ It was half-past ten before I set off upon my second cab-journey, with the chest in front of me. The scriever was not visible when I started, but at the Marble Arch I saw him running upon the farther pavement. He kept a long, swift stride, his long, lean figure sidling, as it were, along. The sight whipped up my blood; I shouted to the driver to “push on.” The horse was tired and weak-kneed, and I fretted at the pace we went; yet, when we came into Damon Gardens the scriever was not in sight. We had evidently outrun if we had not outworn him. ”

“ What claim have you to the keys of life or death? Your voice rings like a gentleman's,” said she, and now she approached and set a trembling hand upon my arm: “for the love of God leave me to what I will. If you are a man of education, if you know anything, you will know this, that there are times when we must walk by and avert our eyes. ”

“ I have lived much among horrible sights and sounds, and you must not wonder if this scene does not affect me. Nay, I have myself known the very feelings which animate you now, and here I stand, an outlaw, to convict myself of folly. You have accidentally killed a man. ”

“ I had no doubt that I owed this to my friend the scriever. The dilemma was worse than ever: I could not move without money, and there was but one course to pursue, on which I determined forthwith. I must go back to the house in Damon Gardens, and get a few more shillings.
Leaving word that I would return shortly, I went out, with the intention of making my way to Chelsea; but the first thing that met my eyes as I turned into the street was the figure of the scriever under the lamplight. I withdrew quickly, for I dared not leave the chest unguarded to that scoundrel. ”

“ Either you shall go home and reconsider your decision until to-morrow, or I will hand you over to the policeman on the bridge near by.”
Instantly a change came over her. She dropped to the ground. “For the love of God,” she pleaded, “do not do that. You must not—you shall not. Don't say that. If you have ever been yourself in trouble, you will pity me and not do that.”
The terror into which those few words had cast her seemed to me to be incommensurate with their importance. ”

“ I said; “I am older, and a man. I have sacrificed my career. Your life may still be happy. Let me take this thing away.”
“What would you do?” she asked impassively.
“Placed in a box,” I said in a lower voice, “it can be carried away, and dropped into the friendly bosom of the Thames, which receives all secrets and discloses none.” ”

“ III.—THE OAK CHEST. OUTCASTS see strange things, stranger even than the officers of the law whose task it is to mark, trace, and control those departures from the normal course of society which characterise our great cities. ”

“ To come down to the life of a vagabond and to fit into it is not achieved so easily. A barrister is content to spend many years in acquiring a knowledge of his profession; a soldier, as I know, would think himself lucky, if after twenty years he were sure of his calling. ”