But he cannot be telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such extraordinary proof." Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes.

I was in an extraordinary position, myself.

What seemed falsehood to them, struck me as the absolute truth.

Carmel had been the one to go home; he, without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said.

As this conviction penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it plunged me.
To have suffered, myself,--to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and the disgrace of arrest--had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel's by what I had considered a totally harmless subterfuge.
I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which lay before me.