I thought of these things, and boldly answered: "Yes, I do know." He looked at me reflectively; then said, in low, thoughtful tones, speaking, not to me, but entirely to himself: "Suppose I shoot him ?" I saw in his eye, that if I flinched, he would draw the trigger.
"Suppose you trust me ?" I said, without moving a muscle.
"I trusted you, as an honest man, downstairs, and I find you, like a thief, up here," returned the doctor, with a self-satisfied smile at the neatness of his own retort.

"No," he continued, relapsing into soliloquy: "there is risk every way; but the least risk perhaps is to shoot him." "Wrong," said I."There are relations of mine who have a pecuniary interest in my life.

I am the main condition of a contingent reversion in their favor.

If I am missed, I shall be inquired after." I have wondered since at my own coolness in the face of the doctor's pistol; but my life depended on my keeping my self-possession, and the desperate nature of the situation lent me a desperate courage.
"How do I know you are not lying ?" he asked.
"Have I not spoken the truth, hitherto ?" Those words made him hesitate.

He lowered the pistol slowly to his side.
I began to breathe freely.
"Trust me," I repeated.