"it's about time somebody
did. Surely you and I can put up a bit of a fight between us? Surely we
aren't such ninepins as old Stainsby, Abercromby Royle, Guy Berridge
and all that lot?"

In the pause I figured her looking at him, as I had so often done when a
civil answer was impossible. But Mrs. Ricardo asked another question
instead.

"Is that your notion of laying the ghost?"

"Yes!" he said earnestly. "There's something not to be explained in all
the things that have happened since I've been here. To be absolutely
honest, I haven't always really and truly believed in all my own
explanations. I'm not sure that Gilly himself--that unbelieving
dog--didn't get nearer the mark on the night he was nearly burned to
death. But, if it's my own ghost, all the more reason to lay it; and, if
it isn't, those other poor brutes were helpless in their ignorance, but
I haven't their excuse!"

"I believe every word of it," said the poor soul with a sob. "When we
came here I thought we should be--well, happy enough in our way. But we
haven't had a day's happiness. You, you have given me the only happiness
I've ever had here, and now...."

"No; it's been the other way about," interrupted Uvo, sadly. "But
that's all over. I'm going to clear out, and you'll find things far
happier when I'm gone. It's I who have been the curse to you--to both of
you--if not to all the rest...."

His voice failed him; but there was no mistaking its fast resolve. Its
very tenderness was not more unmistakable, to me, than the fixity of a
resolution which my whole heart and soul applauded. And suddenly I was
flattering myself that the man by my side shared my intuitive confidence
and approval. He was no longer a man of stone; he had come to life
again. Those hands of his were not fiercely frozen to the crop, but
turning it gently round and round. Then they stopped. Then they moved
with the man's whole body. He was looking the other way, almost in the
direction by which he and I had approached the temple. And as I looked,
too, there were footsteps in the grass, Mrs. Ricardo passed close by us
with downcast eyes, and so back into the wood, with Uvo at arm's length
on the far side.

Then it was that I found myself mistaken in Ricardo. He had not taken
his eyes off the retreating pair. He was crouching to follow them, only
waiting till they were at a safe distance. I also waited--till they
disappeared--then I touched him on the shoulder.

He jumped up