THE DOUBLE ALIBI 171 



of sledge, generally used for dragging peat home, 

 wherein, with abundance of blankets for covering, 

 I hoped to bring Allen back to the shepherd's 

 cottage. 



Not to delay over details, this was managed at 

 last, and the unhappy fellow was under a substan- 

 tial roof. But he was very ill ; he became delirious 

 and raved of many things — talked of old college 

 adventures, bid recklessly for imaginary books, and 

 practised other eccentricities of fever. 



When his fever- left him he was able to con- 

 verse in a way — I talking, and he scrawling faintly 

 with a pencil on paper. I told him how his 

 character had been cleared, how he had been 

 hunted for, advertised for, vainly enough. To the 

 shepherds' cottages where he had lived till the 

 beginning of that summer, newspapers rarely came ; 

 to his. den in the old secret still, of course they 

 never came at all. 



His own story of what he had been doing at 

 the fatal hour when so many people saw him at 

 the auction'rooms was brief. 



He had left the rooms, as he said, at three 



