us who
knew him best--myself amongst others--advised him to go away, as he was
making matters worse and worse for himself every day. Well, he wouldn't
take our advice (that also, I suppose, was a matter of course), so we had
to tell him that he _must_ go, or the inevitable sending to Coventry
would follow; for his individual trouble had so overmastered him that we
felt that _we_ must go if he did not.

"He took that better than we expected, when something or other--an
interview with the girl, I think, and some hot words with the successful
lover following close upon it, threw him quite off his balance; and he
got hold of an axe and fell upon his rival when there was no one by; and
in the struggle that followed the man attacked, hit him an unlucky blow
and killed him. And now the slayer in his turn is so upset that he is
like to kill himself; and if he does, the girl will do as much, I fear.
And all this we could no more help than the earthquake of the year before
last."

"It is very unhappy," said Dick; "but since the man is dead, and cannot
be brought to life again, and since the slayer had no malice in him, I
cannot for the life of me see why he shouldn't get over it before long.
Besides, it was the right man that was killed and not the wrong. Why
should a man brood over a mere accident for ever? And the girl?"

"As to her," said Walter, "the whole thing seems to have inspired her
with terror rather than grief. What you say about the man is true, or it
should be; but then, you see, the excitement and jealousy that was the
prelude to this tragedy had made an evil and feverish element round about
him, from which he does not seem to be able to escape. However, we have
advised him to go away--in fact, to cross the seas; but he is in such a
state that I do not think he _can_ go unless someone _takes_ him, and I
think it will fall to my lot to do so; which is scarcely a cheerful
outlook for me."

"O, you will find a certain kind of interest in it," said Dick. "And of
course he _must_ soon look upon the affair from a reasonable point of
view sooner or later."

"Well, at any rate," quoth Walter, "now that I have eased my mind by
making you uncomfortable, let us have an end of the subject for the
present. Are you going to take your guest to Oxford?"

"Why, of course we must pass through it," said Dick, smiling, "as we are
going into the upper waters: but I thought that we wouldn't stop there,
or we shall be bel