When we had lit our cigars he said quietly: "Now that we are alone I want to have a confidential talk.

We are 'tiled,' of course; for the present at all events ?" "Quite so!" I said, my heart sinking as I thought of my conversation with Sergeant Daw in the morning, and of the disturbing and harrowing fears which it had left in my mind.

He went on: "This case is enough to try the sanity of all of us concerned in it.
The more I think of it, the madder I seem to get; and the two lines, each continually strengthened, seem to pull harder in opposite directions." "What two lines ?" He looked at me keenly for a moment before replying.
Doctor Winchester's look at such moments was apt to be disconcerting.
It would have been so to me had I had a personal part, other than my interest in Miss Trelawny, in the matter.

As it was, however, I stood it unruffled.

I was now an attorney in the case; an amicus curiae in one sense, in another retained for the defence.