Tracks in the Snow by Godfrey R. Benson — Read

Once again I saw William Vane-Cartwright. At his own request I was summoned to visit him in the gaol. It was not the interview of penitent and confessor; none the less I am bound to silence about it, even though my silence may involve the suppression of something which tells in his favour. One thing I may and must say. Part of his object in sending for me was to make me his agent in several acts of kindness.

As I look back, I often ask myself: Was there indeed no truth, beyond what we knew, in the tale that this man told to Callaghan and me, and which was skilfully woven to accord as far as possible with many things which we might have and had in fact discovered. In point of vital facts it was certainly false. I could now disprove every syllable of that love story; his acquaintance with Miss Denison was only a few months old; she had never known Peters; and the letter that he showed us was a forgery of course. I happen, moreover, too late for any useful purpose, to have met several people who knew Longhurst well; all agree that he was rough and uncompanionable, all that he was strictly honest and touchingly kind; all testify that in his later days he was a total abstainer.