igh for anything to affect me that he could do. . . .
It is always a mistake, Roddy, to falter once in an experiment.
It is disloyalty in a man of science to renounce one at any point.
Now, I had renounced, in handing Santa the flask; and again I had
faltered, in a moment of generosity when I left him beside her
corpse. . . . And of that act of generosity--and of delicacy, too, by
the way--this thief had taken advantage.

"Oh, yes--I know what you will be wanting to say--that the man was
her husband, hang it all! . . . I answer that he _had been_ her
husband and my darling's flesh I had resigned to him, as was meet and
right. . . . But if you'll understand--if you've ever read what the
Gospel quite truly says about marriage, to take it in--the man had no
tyrant's monopoly beyond the grave. She was mine now--his, too, if
he would--but mine also by right of my great love for her.

"You see, I am shaking, even as I speak of it. I had this grievance,
and it festered and raised the whole temperature of my hate. . . .
And this wasn't the worst, either. The worst was a sense that, lying
somewhere with closed eyes under the ebb and flow of the tide, my
beloved was working against me, watchfully, by unguessable ways, and
weakening me. There was this dog, for example. . . . Yes, _that_ had
been the first token. How had it passed from me--this power over
animals that had used to be exerted so easily?"

"But I had not lost my power over Farrell, although there were times
when I mistrusted it. His eyes had given me the first warning, when
I returned that morning and found myself tricked. They were
half-timorous but also half-defiant, and wholly sly. It disconcerted
him that I made no comment on his silence and asked no questions.

"On the fifth morning--by which time we had picked up enough strength
to attempt a day's exploration of the west side of the island, and
within an hour of the time fixed for our start, he found me fitting
and nailing a short cross-plank to the boat's mast.

"'Hallo!' said he. 'What job are you spoiling there? I'm the
carpenter of this party, or believed I was.'

"'And I'm the captain,' said I; 'and duly appointed--though I have no
witness but you to the fact--if you choose to lie about it. . . .
I'm doing a job which you have neglected: fixing a Cross for Santa.
It will be a comfort, as we fare inland, to know she has a Christian
mark over her grave. . . . You have the bearings accurate n