ep. No
wonder he drank in secret. Barbara, who had gone through the household
accounts, had already been staggered by the wine-merchant's bills for
whisky. Had he stupefied himself day after day, night after night for
the last few months? I cannot but hope that he did. At any rate God was
merciful at last. He killed him.

Jaffery threw a couple of logs on the fire--the ship-logs that Adrian
loved, and the sea-salts, barium, strontium and what-not, gave green and
crimson and lavender flames.

"I've seen as much suffering in my time as any man living," he said. "A
war-correspondent does. He sees samples of every conceivable sort of
hell. But this sample I haven't struck before and it's the worst of the
lot. My God! and only the day before yesterday I took him to be
married."

"It was fifteen months ago, Jaff, and since then you've plucked hairs
out of Prester John's beard, or been entertained by a Viceroy of China,
which comes to the same thing. I was right in saying you had no idea of
time or space."

He paid no attention to my poor, watery jest.

"It was the day before yesterday. And now he's dead and the child
stillborn--"

I uttered a short cry which interrupted him. A memory had smitten me;
that of his words in September, and of the queer slanting look in his
eyes: "They'll both be born together."

I told Jaffery. "Was there ever such a ghastly prophecy?" I said. "Both
stillborn together. The more one goes into the matter, the more
shudderingly awful it is."

Jaffery nodded and stared into the fire.

"And she at the point of death--to complete the tragedy," he said below
his breath.

Then suddenly he shook himself like a great dog.

"I would give the soul out of my body to save her," he cried with a
startling quaver in his deep voice.

"I know you love her dearly, old man," said I, "but is life the best
thing you can wish for her?"

"Why not?"

"Isn't it obvious? She recovers--she will, most probably, recover;
Jephson said so this morning--she comes back to life to find what? The
shattering of her idol. That will kill her. My dear old Jaff, it's
better that she should die now."

Rugged lines that I had never seen before came into his brow, and his
eyes blazed.

"What do you mean--shattering of idols?"

"She is bound to learn the truth."

He darted forward in his chair and gripped my knee in his mighty grasp,
so that I winced with pain.

"She's not going to learn the truth. She's not going