When the door of Gurneys', the moneylenders, opened to his touch,
and drew him abruptly from his speculations, his first emotion was a
quick irritation that chance should interfere with his thoughts. But
when his lantern showed him that the lock had been tampered with,
his annoyance changed to a thrill of hopeful excitement. What if
this were the way out? What if fate had granted him compromise, the
opportunity of pitting his official virtue against official crime,
those shadowy forces in the existence of which he did not believe,
but which lay on his life like clouds? He was not a physical coward, and it seemed quite simple to him to
creep quietly through the open door into the silent office without
waiting for possible reinforcements. He knew that the safe, which
would be the, natural goal of the presumed burglars, was in Mr.
Gurney's private office beyond, and while he stood listening intently
he seemed to hear dim sounds coming from the direction of that room. For a moment he paused, frowning slightly as a man does when he is
trying to catalogue an impression. When he achieved perception, it
came oddly mingled with recollections of the little tragedies of his
children at home. For some one was crying like a child in the little
room where Mr. Gurney brow-beat recalcitrant borrowers. Dangerous
burglars do not weep, and Bennett hesitated no longer, but stepped
past the open flaps of the counter, and threw open the door of the
inner office. The electric light had been switched on, and at the table there sat a
slight young man with his face buried in his hands, crying bitterly. Behind him the safe stood open and empty, and the grate was filled
with smouldering embers of burnt paper. Bennett went up to the
young man and placed his hand on his shoulder. But the young man wept
on and did not move. Try as he might Bennett could not help relaxing the grip of outraged
law, and patting the young man's shoulder soothingly as it rose and
fell. He had no fit weapons of roughness and oppression with which to
oppose this child-like grief; he could only fight tears with tears. "Come," he said gently, "you must pull yourself together." At the sound of his voice the young man gave a great sob and then was
silent, shivering a little. "That's better," said Bennett encouragingly, "much better." "I have burnt everything," the young man said suddenly, "and now the
place is empty. I was nearly sick just now." Bennett looked at him sympathetically, as one dreamer may look at
another, who is sad with action dreamed too often for scatheless
accomplishment. "I'm afraid you'll get into serious trouble," he
said. "I know," replied the young man, "but that blackguard Gurney--" His
voice rose to a shrill scream and choked him for a moment. Then
he went on quietly "But it's all over now. Finished! Done with!" "I suppose you owed him money?" The young man nodded. "He lives on fools like me. But he threatened
to tell my father, and now I've just about ruined him. Pah! Swine!" "This won't be much better for your father," said Bennett gravely. "No, it's worse; but perhaps it will help some of the others. He kept
on threatening and I couldn't wait any longer. Can't you see?" Over the young man's shoulder the stars becked and nodded to Bennett
through the blindless window. "I see," he said; "I see." "So now you can take me." Bennett looked doubtfully at the outstretched wrists. "You are only a
fool," he said, "a dreaming fool like me, and they will give you
years for this. I don't see why they should give a man years for
being a fool." The young man looked up, taken with a sudden hope. "You will let me
go?" he said, in astonishment. "I know I was an ass just now. I
suppose I was a bit shaken. But you will let me go?" "I wish to God I had never seen you!" said Bennett simply. "You have
your father, and I have a wife and three little children. Who shall
judge between us?" "My father is an old man." "And my children are little. You had better go before I make up my
mind." Without another word the young man crept out of the room, and Bennett
followed him slowly into the street. This gallant criminal whose
capture would have been honourable, had dwindled to a hysterical
foolish boy; and aided by his own strange impulse this boy had ruined
him. The burglary had taken place on his beat; there would be an
inquiry; it did not need that to secure his expulsion from the force. Once in the street he looked up hopefully to the heavens; but now the
stars seemed unspeakably remote, though as he passed along his beat
his wife and his three little children were walking by his side. III

Bennett had developed mentally without realising the logical result
of his development until it smote him with calamity. Of his betrayal
of trust as a guardian of property he thought nothing; of the
possibility of poverty for his family he thought a great deal--all
the more that his dreamer's mind was little accustomed to gripping
the practical. It was strange, he thought, that his final declaration
of war against his position should have been a little lacking in
dignity. He had not taken the decisive step through any deep
compassion of utter poverty bravely borne. His had been no more than
trivial pity of a young man's folly; and this was a frail thing on
which to make so great a sacrifice. Yet he regretted nothing. His
task of moral guardian of men and women had become impossible to him,
and sooner or later he must have given it up. And there was also his
family. "I must come to some decision," he said to himself firmly. And then the great scream fell upon his ears and echoed through his
brain for ever and ever. It came from the house before which he was
standing, and he expected the whole street to wake aghast with the
horror of it. But there followed a silence that seemed to emphasise
the ugliness of the sound. Far away an engine screamed as if in
mocking imitation; and that was all. Bennett had counted up to a
hundred and seventy before the door of the house opened, and a man
came out on to the steps. "Oh, constable," he said coolly, "come inside, will you? I have
something to show you." Bennett mounted the steps doubtfully. "There was a scream," he said. The man looked at him quickly. "So you heard it," he said. "It was
not pretty." "No, it was not," replied Bennett. The man led him down the dim passage into the back sitting-room. The
body of a man lay on the sofa; it was curled like a dry leaf. "That is my brother," said the man, with a little emphatic nod; "I
have killed him. He was my enemy." Bennett stared dully at the body, without believing it to be really
there. "Dead!" he said mechanically. "And anything I say will be used against me in evidence! As if you
could compress my hatred into one little lying notebook." "I don't care a damn about your hatred," said Bennett, with heat. "An
hour ago, perhaps, I might have arrested you; now I only find you
uninteresting." The man gave a long, low whistle of surprise.