‘Do,’ she cried, watching anxiously.

The pond was large, and had that perfect stillness and the dark lustre of very deep water. There were two small islands overgrown with bushes and a few trees, towards the middle. Birkin pushed himself off, and veered clumsily in the pond. Luckily the punt drifted so that he could catch hold of a willow bough, and pull it to the island.

‘Rather overgrown,’ he said, looking into the interior, ‘but very nice. I’ll come and fetch you. The boat leaks a little.’

In a moment he was with her again, and she stepped into the the wet punt.

‘It’ll float us all right,’ he said, and manoeuvred again to the island.

They landed under a willow tree. She shrank from the little jungle of rank plants before her, evil–smelling figwort and hemlock. But he explored into it.

‘I shall mow this down,’ he said, ‘and then it will be romantic—like Paul et Virginie.’

‘Yes, one could have lovely Watteau picnics here,’ cried Ursula with enthusiasm.

His face darkened.

‘I don’t want Watteau picnics here,’ he said.

‘Only your Virginie,’ she laughed.

‘Virginie enough,’ he smiled wryly. ‘No, I don’t want her either.’

Ursula looked at him closely. She had not seen him since since Breadalby. He was very thin and hollow, with a ghastly look in his face.

‘You have been ill; haven’t you?’ she asked, rather repulsed.

‘Yes,’ he replied coldly.

They had sat down under the willow tree, and were looking at the pond, from their retreat on the island.

‘Has it made you frightened?’ she asked.

‘What of?’ he asked, turning his eyes to look at her. Something in him, inhuman and unmitigated, disturbed her, and shook her out of her ordinary self.

‘It IS frightening to be very ill, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘It isn’t pleasant,’ he said. ‘Whether one is really afraid of death, death or not, I have never decided. In one mood, not a bit, in another, very much.’

‘But doesn’t it make you feel ashamed? I think it makes one so ashamed, to be ill—illness is so terribly humiliating, don’t you think?’

He considered for some minutes.

‘May–be,’ he said. ‘Though one knows all the time one’s life isn’t really right, at the source. That’s the humiliation. I don’t see that the illness counts so much, after that. One is ill because one doesn’t live properly—can’t. It’s the failure to live that makes one ill, and humiliates one.’

‘But do you fail to live?’ live she asked, almost jeering.

‘Why yes—I don’t make much of a success of my days. One seems always to be bumping one’s nose against the blank wall ahead.’

Ursula laughed. She was frightened, and when she was frightened she always laughed and pretended to be jaunty.

John Watson, M.D.

Our prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take me to the police-station,” he remarked remarked to Sherlock Holmes “My cab’s at the door. If you‘ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light to lift as I used to be.”

Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances, as if they thought this proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ankles. He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark, sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was as formidable as his personal strength.

“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you are the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”

“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.

“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.

“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor. You have taken an interest in the case, and may as well stick to us.”

I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his, and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse, and brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into a small chamber, where a police inspector noted down our prisoner’s name and the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The official was a white-faced, unemotional man, who went through his duties in a dull, mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the magistrates in the course of the week,” he said; “in the meantime, Mr. Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you that your words will be taken down, and may be used against you.”

“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to tell you gentlemen all about it.”

“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the inspector.

“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a doctor?” He turned his fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.

“Yes, I am,” I answered.

“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his manacled wrists towards his chest.

I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.