ty, Lingard broke the painful silence.

"I always thought," he said, sadly, "I always thought you were somewhat
heartless, Willems, and apt to cast adrift those that thought most of
you. I appeal to what is best in you; do not abandon that woman."

"I have not abandoned her," answered Willems, quickly, with conscious
truthfulness. "Why should I? As you so justly observed, she has been a
good wife to me. A very good, quiet, obedient, loving wife, and I love
her as much as she loves me. Every bit. But as to going back now, to
that place where I . . . To walk again amongst those men who yesterday
were ready to crawl before me, and then feel on my back the sting of
their pitying or satisfied smiles--no! I can't. I would rather hide from
them at the bottom of the sea," he went on, with resolute energy. "I
don't think, Captain Lingard," he added, more quietly, "I don't think
that you realize what my position was there."

In a wide sweep of his hand he took in the sleeping shore from north to
south, as if wishing it a proud and threatening good-bye. For a short
moment he forgot his downfall in the recollection of his brilliant
triumphs. Amongst the men of his class and occupation who slept in those
dark houses he had been indeed the first.

"It is hard," muttered Lingard, pensively. "But whose the fault? Whose
the fault?"

"Captain Lingard!" cried Willems, under the sudden impulse of a
felicitous inspiration, "if you leave me here on this jetty--it's
murder. I shall never return to that place alive, wife or no wife. You
may just as well cut my throat at once."

The old seaman started.

"Don't try to frighten me, Willems," he said, with great severity, and
paused.

Above the accents of Willems' brazen despair he heard, with considerable
uneasiness, the whisper of his own absurd conscience. He meditated for
awhile with an irresolute air.

"I could tell you to go and drown yourself, and be damned to you," he
said, with an unsuccessful assumption of brutality in his manner, "but
I won't. We are responsible for one another--worse luck. I am almost
ashamed of myself, but I can understand your dirty pride. I can!
By . . ."

He broke off with a loud sigh and walked briskly to the steps, at the
bottom of which lay his boat, rising and falling gently on the slight
and invisible swell.

"Below there! Got a lamp in the boat? Well, light it and bring it up,
one of you. Hurry now!"

He tore out a page of his pocketbook, mois