as wrong, both in the
beginning and in the end. But I will admit he was not a coward. I
respect him, but I do not think, at any point, he was right--except
perhaps in 'doing' the coroner."

"That settles it, then," said Havelock. And he started towards the door.

"Settles what, in heaven's name?"

"What I came to have settled. I shan't tell her. If I could have got one
other decent citizen--and I confess you were my only chance--to agree
with me that Ferguson was right,--right about his fellow passengers on
the _Argentina_, right about tow-head on the track,--I'd have gone to
her, I think. I'd rather like to ruin her life, if I could."

A great conviction approached Chantry just then. He felt the rush of it
through his brain.

"No," he cried. "Ferguson loved her too much. He wouldn't like that--not
as you'd put it to her."

Havelock thought a moment. "No," he said in turn; but his "no" was very
humble. "He wouldn't. I shall never do it. But, my God, how I wanted
to!"

"And I'll tell you another thing, too." Chantry's tone was curious. "You
may agree with Ferguson all you like; you may admire him as much as you
say; but you, Havelock, would never have done what he did. Not even"--he
lifted a hand against interruption--"if you knew you had the brain you
think Ferguson had. You'd have been at the bottom of the sea, or under
the engine wheels, and you know it."

He folded his arms with a hint of truculence.

But Havelock the Dane, to Chantry's surprise, was meek. "Yes," he said,
"I know it. Now let me out of here."

"Well, then,"--Chantry's voice rang out triumphant,--"what does that
prove?"

"Prove?" Havelock's great fist crashed down on the table. "It proves
that Ferguson's a better man than either of us. I can think straight,
but he had the sand to act straight. You haven't even the sand to think
straight. You and your reactionary rot! The world's moving, Chantry.
Ferguson was ahead of it, beckoning. You're an ant that got caught in
the machinery, I shouldn't wonder."

"Oh, stow the rhetoric! We simply don't agree. It's happened before."
Chantry laughed scornfully. "I tell you I respect him; but God Almighty
wouldn't make me agree with him."

"You're too mediaeval by half," Havelock mused. "Now, Ferguson was a
knight of the future--a knight of Humanity."

"Don't!" shouted Chantry. His nerves were beginning to feel the strain.
"Leave chivalry out of it. The _Argentina_ business may or may not have
been