The other nodded; he forgot that the speaker could not see.

‘I was not intending to commit suicide. Such an idea didn’t even enter my head. To me, suicide is the resource of a coward. I have been in too many tight places to ever fear that.’

‘Then in the name of goodness why were you trying to get out of that window?’

‘I wanted to escape; to get away!’

‘In your shirt and trousers; and they are not over much! Without even slippers!’ A faint smile curled round the lips of the injured man. Hope was beginning to help already.

‘Even that way!’

‘But man alive! you were going to your