d, and even if he
had a little respect for it before, it would all be crushed out of him.
Why, man, Radford Leicester has lived the life of a slave in Morocco,
and away out in the great desert he has herded with wild beasts in the
shape of men. He has seen the religion of the Christian and the
Mohammedan and the Hindoo tested; he knows what it means. Do you think,
after going through what he has gone, that your tawdry rag-tags of
morality will have any weight with him? No, no; to hate is as natural as
to love; and if love is right, so is hate."

"But, I say, old man----"

"Yes, go on."

"To put it in plain words, what you mean is this. When you realised
that--that she--had cast you off--your love turned to hatred; that you
played a grim joke on the world by making every one believe you were
dead; that for six years you have brooded over what you believe to be
your wrongs, nursing revenge all the time, and that you have come back
to--to have, well, your revenge on the woman whom you once loved. Is
that it?"

"It sounds melodramatic, eh? Just like a bit taken out of one of the old
Adelphi melodramas. We used to laugh at them, didn't we, when we heard
the pit and the gallery hissing the villain and cheering the hero. But
even in those days I sympathised with the villain."

"But you don't mean that?"

"Why not?"

"It would not be right."

"Right! And even according to your smug morality, is it right for her to
thrust a man where she thrust Leicester, to make him suffer the torments
which he has suffered, and then to allow her to go unpunished?"

"Perhaps she has suffered."

"Suffered! Watch her even as I have watched her. Look at her smooth,
fair face. There's not a line of care and suffering upon it. Hear her
speak as I have heard her. Every word tells you she is without a care.
Hear her laugh as I have heard her, and you would know that she thinks
no more of having driven a man to his doom than a heartless gambler
cares for the victim he has ruined."

"And you have risen from the dead for----"

"Just that, my friend, just that."

"What revenge?"

"One that shall be sufficient, Signor Winfield."

The two men walked on. Presently the gorge was behind them, and they
stood up on the high moorland, while on every side stretched the wild,
rugged countryside. The sun shone brightly, the air was sweet and clean,
the birds sang joyously. Revenge seemed to be impossible amidst such
surroundings.

"I say, Lei-