can
take no harm. How can she? She acted throughout with a pure mind. She
thought that you were me, and when she found that you weren't--well,
well, take your pride in that. I give it up to you. Why shouldn't I?
She gave you her innocent heart. I don't grudge you."

"You needn't," said Urquhart, "since I'm a dead man. But if I had been
a living one, who knows--?" He laughed bitterly, and stung the other.

"You forget one thing," said James, with something of his old frozen
calm. "For all that you knew, ten minutes after you had left my house
that day--the first of them--I might have benefited by your act--and
you been none the wiser, nor I any the worse off. And there would have
been an end of it."

Urquhart considered the point. James could have seen it working in his
poor, wicked, silly mind, but kept his face away.

"Yes," Urquhart said, "you might; but you didn't." Then he laughed
again--not a pleasant sound.

"Man," said James indignant, "don't you see? What robs me of utterance
is that I _have_ benefited by what you have done."

"It's more than you have deserved, in my opinion," Urquhart retorted.
"I'll ask you not to forget that she has loved me, and doesn't blame
me. And I'll ask you not to forget that it is I who am telling you all
this, and not she." It was his last bite.

The retort was easy, and would have crushed him; but James did not
make it. Let him have his pitiful triumph. He was not angry any more;
he couldn't be--and there was Lucy to be thought of. What would
Urquhart think of a Lucy who could have revealed such things as these?
He would have judged her brazen, little knowing the warm passion of
her tears. Ah, not for him these holy moments. No, let him die
thinking honour of her--honour according to his own code. He put his
hand out and touched Urquhart's face with the back of it.

"Let us leave it at this," he said; "we both love her. We are neither
of us fit. She would have taken either of us. But I came first, and
then came Lancelot--and she loves the law. Put it no other way."

"The law, the law!" said the fretful, smitten man.

"The law of her nature," said James.

He felt Urquhart's piercing eyes to be upon him and schooled himself
to face them and to smile into them. To his surprise he saw them fill
with tears.

"You are a good chap," Urquhart said. "I never knew that before."
Macartney blew his nose.

No more was said, but the sufferer now allowed him to do what he
would.