"

"What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that
is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for
the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection."

Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a
warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.

"Anyhow, my dear Handel," said he presently, "soldiering won't do. If
you were to renounce this patronage and these favors, I suppose you
would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have
already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering!
Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's
house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know."

Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money.

"But there is another question," said Herbert. "This is an ignorant,
determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he
seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce
character."

"I know he is," I returned. "Let me tell you what evidence I have seen
of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that
encounter with the other convict.

"See, then," said Herbert; "think of this! He comes here at the peril
of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of
realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from
under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him.
Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?"

"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night
of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his
putting himself in the way of being taken."

"Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that there would be great
danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains
in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him."

I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon
me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard
myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my
chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that
even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should
be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so
wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would
far rather have worked