You see the sort of fellow they have to show people round: do you
think he's the kind to see the difference next time, or to connect
it with us if he does? One left much the same things, lying much
as he left them, under a dust-sheet which is only taken off for
the benefit of the curious, who often don't turn up for weeks on
end."
I admitted that we might be safe for three or four weeks. Raffles
held out his hand.
"Then let us be friends about it, Bunny, and smoke the cigarette
of Sullivan and peace! A lot may happen in three or four weeks;
and what should you say if this turned out to be the last as well
as the least of all. my crimes? I must own that it seems to me
their natural and fitting end, though I might have stopped more
characteristically than with a mere crime of sentiment. No, I
make no promises, Bunny; now I have got these things, I may be
unable to resist using them once more. But with this war one gets
all. the excitement one requires - and rather more than usual may
happen in three or four weeks?"
Was he thinking even then of volunteering for the front? Had he
already set his heart on the one chance of some atonement for his
life - nay, on the very death he was to die? I never knew, and
shall never know.
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