Aghast, he sits there. Suddenly he
mutters:]
If I leave that there--my name--my whole future!
[He springs up, takes up the paper again, and again reads.]
My God! It's ruin!
[He makes as if to tear it across, stops, and looks down at
those two; covers his eyes with his hand; drops the paper and
rushes to the door. But he stops there and comes back,
magnetised, as it were, by that paper. He takes it up once more
and thrusts it into his pocket.]
[The footsteps of a Policeman pass, slow and regular, outside.
His face crisps and quivers; he stands listening till they die
away. Then he snatches the paper from his pocket, and goes past
the foot of the couch to the fore.]
All my----No! Let him hang!
[He thrusts the paper into the fire, stamps it down with his
foot, watches it writhe and blacken. Then suddenly clutching
his head, he turns to the bodies on the couch. Panting and like
a man demented, he recoils past the head of the couch, and
rushing to the window, draws the curtains and throws the window
up for air.
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