hen,
or the certainty, of losing my dearest wish I must tell you this--_I
do not forgive my wife Anne or Robert Machin_: and though I would be
buried in their grave, it shall not be beside them."

"How then?" cried Gonsalvez and I in one voice.

"I would be buried, Sirs, not beside but between them. Ah? Your eyes
were moist, I make no doubt, when you first listened to the pretty
affecting tale of their love and misfortune? Not yet has it struck
either of you to what a hell they left _me_. And I have been living in
it ever since! Think! I loved that woman. She wronged me hatefully,
meanly: yet she and he died together, feeling no remorse. It is I who
keep the knowledge of their vileness which shall push them asunder as
I stretch myself at length in my cool dead ease, content, with my long
purpose achieved, with the vengeance prepared, and nothing to do but
wait securely for the Day of Judgment. Pardon me, Sirs, that I say
'this shall be,' whereas I read in your faces that you refuse me. I
have cheered an unhappy life by this one promise, which at the end I
have thrown away upon a little scruple." He passed a hand over his
eyes and stood up. "It is curious," he said, and stood musing. "It is
curious," he repeated, and turning to Gonsalvez said in a voice empty
of passion, "You refuse me, I understand?"

"Yes," Gonsalvez answered. "I salute you for an honest gentleman; but
I may not grant your wish."

"It is curious," Master d'Arfet repeated once more, and looked at us
queerly, as if seeking to excuse his weakness in our judgment. "So
small a difficulty!"

Gonsalvez bowed. "You have taught us this, Sir, that the world speaks
at random, but in the end a man's honour rests in no hands but his
own."

Master d'Arfet waited while Martin translated; then he put out a hand
for his staff, found it, turned on his heel and tottered from the
room, the interpreter following with a face which had altered nothing
during our whole discourse.

* * * * *

Master d'Arfet sailed at daybreak, having declined Gonsalvez' offer
to show him the grave. My old friend insisted that I must stay a week
with him, and from the terrace before his house we watched the English
pinnace till she rounded the point to eastward and disappeared.

"After all," said I, "we treated him hardly."

But Gonsalvez said: "A husk of a man! All the blood in him sour! And
yet," he mused, "the husk kept him noble after a sort."