.

"You were at the funeral!" he gasped.

"Radford Leicester was at the funeral. He read what a certain religious
paper had to say about him. Many preachers drew profitable morals from
his career. After all was over, he went away. He had made up his mind
what to do. He had died, and he meant to rise again. He has risen again.
He had a great battle to fight, Signor Winfield. You guess what it was.
He had well-nigh conquered his enemy once for love of a woman, now he
determined to conquer him completely, but from a different motive."

"Whisky," said Winfield.

"Whisky," repeated the other. "He knew that while it had dominion over
him he would be the plaything of--anything. For two years he went where
he could not get it."

"Where?"

"Some time he will tell you himself--that and other things. But he
fought it, and he mastered it, not for love, but for something
different."

"What?"

"Can't you guess? Think of the kind of man Radford Leicester was,
Winfield. What do you think would be his motive?"

Winfield was silent.

"When you get down to the bedrock of this little human nature of ours,
Winfield, you find that the same elemental passions exist, no matter
what be our race or our country. Shakespeare knew it when he conceived
the character of Shylock, and when he wrote _Othello_. What do you think
Radford Leicester would want to live for?"

"You love her still?"

"Love her! As much as Shylock loved Antonio, my friend; as much as any
other man loves one who has lifted him into heaven only to hurl him into
hell."

"Then you do not love her?"

"Why should Radford Leicester love her, my friend? Tell me that."

"Perhaps because he cannot help it."

"No; he hates her because he cannot help it."

"Hate her!"

"If there is one thing the East teaches a man, it is how to hate well.
He has learnt his lesson. Great God, he has learnt it well!"

"And why have you come back?"

"Why should Radford Leicester come back, Winfield? Tell me that. Think
out the whole case quietly. Why should he come back? That Bible of yours
is full of human nature. Those old Jews realised the elemental passions
of life--an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That appeals to a man
as just."

"But--but, I say----"

"Yes, tell me."

"Think of what it means. It is not right."

Ricordo laughed quietly.

"Right, wrong. They are a part of the stock-in-trade of your moralists.
Let a man go through what Leicester has gone, my frien