The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-10-26
XVIII.

l At the instant when Sne seemed HrSt
 to forecast the last sentence of her
 husbands statement Mrs. Calden start I ed forward to check him, but the
 | words were spoken at that very mo-
 ment. In fact. as Grimbleshaw per
 ceived, MT Calden spoke them more | rapidly than ordinarily, as if fearing 1 interruption. It struck Grimbleshaw l also that Mrs. Calden did not receive 1 the statement as a person would to 1 whom the idea was new. or who now l heard it for the first time, but rather l as one who would guard it from an others hearing. Her protest. quick and sharply spoken. jumped with this l view:t
 | l Hes crazy. doctor. don't listen to 1himi"
 l Calden turned sharply on her and spoke with irritation that entrusted with the manner of his late declara- tion:
 1 1T could be spared that from you. I think. after ten years of it from oth- ersr
 "Oh, Harold" she pleaded. ''you are
 so worried that you don't know what
 you say. Wait1 till you're calmer.
 Please. please wait!'' W
 T never was calmer.' he said. and l impressed Grimbleshaw that it was so. "I know perfectly what am saying" Convinced that there was nothing in l this really unknown to Mrs Calden, | Grimbleshaw measured the cause of I her immediate disturbance and sought l to allay it.
 sI'm here,'' he said, professionally. Whatever MT. Calde4 says to me is l under privilege and cannot be used against him in any way No such privilege attaches to anything Mrs. Calden may say, unless she, too l is under my charge he felt impressed l to add.
 You couldn't have done iti'' Mrs. Calden exclaimed, turning to her hus- l band with less heed of what he had said than Grim bleshaw anticipated. It struck him. too, that she said this rather as striving to convince her own l doubts than because of any possible effect upon others. CaIden answered | with half smile. which. under the conditions. was peculiarly ghastly. 1 Don't you see that only one other could have done it, and that he should have done it is impossible, absolutely inpossible!"
 1 Now the woman did turn pale. so pale that Grimbleshaw. with the in- stinct of physician, hastened to her side and helped her to a chair
 What Grimbleshaw saw clearly was that somewhere in the group made up Eof this man and woman and their two
 children. slept the secret of the Alten- I burg murder, and that whoever it I touched directly Judith could not es- I cape the pain and modification that discovery must bring He could, per haps, stretch the plea of privilege to | cover the confession he had heard. but clearly Calden had not thought of that l when he spoke, even if he had knowl- I edge of the fact of privilege, and his betrayal of himself might equally as we'll have been to another He saw 1 the situation as pre-eminently menac- l ing to Judith's comfort.
 I'm not accusing myself of mur-
 der.'' Calden went on to say when, under the doctors care. his wife show l ed better. "but, with all the cause I had for hating him the public would l never give me the benefit of the doubt. Indeed. the more they felt me Justified in killing him the more cer- | tain they would be that I had done so As to the possibility of the coincidence l of his accidental death at my hands. 1 they would laugh at the suggestion. 1 If one rose from the dead to affirm it 1 they would remain unconvinced.' As Calden talked the case shaped it.
 self to Grimbleshaw's mind. in spite 1 of his wish to believe differently The | o,,,c. ir,f nct 1 burg was clear as daylight There was no sorrow over his death, but in
 stead clear admission. that he had so
 suffered at the dead mans hands as. l in the eyes of the mass of men. to l justify his killing him. To this was added his admission that he had done l SO. What did the plea of accident | amount to, even if honestly made? :? Might it not be possible for Ca1den to believe that the act was unintentional. 1 even though it was deliberately plan ned? Graver instances of honest self l deception than that had come to many 1 mems experience. A man was scarce I ly the best judge of his own acts and
 motives. even under normal conditions.
 and it was to be admitted that the conditions surrounding Calden were | anything but normal
 | i've had the freeSt of opportunity | to escape for the last five years, 1 Calden went on. as if he felt, now that l he had said so much, that he owed it l to Grimbleshaw to say more. No i body at the asylum believed me to be l insane, but all thought that I looked l upon it as the alternative of prison. and so remained. Moreover. my fam l fly had lived down the sharpness of pain of my first commitment. and 1 i saw nothing to be gained in subjecting them to the new strain of trial, un- der conditions such that I could not produce the proof necessary to my full exoneration. A few weeks ago my wife saw a chance. or thought she saw
 a chance, that Altenburg might be in duced to speak I knew too well that
 any speech that would avail me must
 be to his conviction. for me to feel the
 thing possible: but was bound to