ue, the Irish lord's conduct was
always more or less in need of an apology. Here were the guilty one's
new excuses, expressed in his customary medley of frank confession and
flowery language:

"I am fearing, my angel, that I have offended you. You have too surely
said to yourself, This miserable Harry might have made me happy by
writing two lines--and what does he do? He sends a message in words
which tell me nothing.

"My sweet girl, the reason why is that I was in two minds when your man
stopped me on my way to the ship.

"Whether it was best for you--I was not thinking of myself--to confess
the plain truth, or to take refuge in affectionate equivocation, was
more than I could decide at the time. When minutes are enough for your
intelligence, my stupidity wants days. Well! I saw it at last. A man
owes the truth to a true woman; and you are a true woman. There you
find a process of reasoning--I have been five days getting hold of it.

"But tell me one thing first. Brutus killed a man; Charlotte Corday
killed a man. One of the two victims was a fine tyrant, and the other a
mean tyrant. Nobody blames those two historical assassins. Why then
blame me for wishing to make a third? Is a mere modern murderer beneath
my vengeance, by comparison with two classical tyrants who did _their_
murders by deputy? The man who killed Arthur Mountjoy is (next to Cain
alone) the most atrocious homicide that ever trod the miry ways of this
earth. There is my reply! I call it a crusher.

"So now my mind is easy. Darling, let me make your mind easy next.

"When I left you at the window of Vimpany's house, I was off to the
other railroad to find the murderer in his hiding-place by the seaside.
He had left it; but I got a trace, and went back to London--to the
Docks. Some villain in Ireland, who knows my purpose, must have turned
traitor. Anyhow, the wretch has escaped me.

"Yes; I searched the ship in every corner. He was not on board. Has he
gone on before me, by an earlier vessel? Or has he directed his flight
to some other part of the world? I shall find out in time. His day of
reckoning will come, and he, too, shall know a violent death! Amen. So
be it. Amen.

"Have I done now? Bear with me, gentle Iris--there is a word more to
come.

"You will wonder why I went on by the steamship--all the way to South
Africa--when I had failed to find the man I wanted, on board. What was
my motive? You, you alone, are always my motive. Lucky