I told him how I had got in at the second-floor window, without
concealing a word of the truth. The gravity of the situation, and the
sharpness of the doctor's intellects, as expressed in his eyes, made
anything like a suppression of facts on my part a desperately dangerous
experiment.

"You wanted to see what I was about up here, did you?" said he, when I
had ended my confession. "Do you know?"

The pistol barrel touched my cheek as he said the last words. I
thought of all the suspicious objects scattered about the room, of the
probability that he was only putting this question to try my courage, of
the very likely chance that he would shoot me forthwith, if I began to
prevaricate. 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."