t in me," Lingard murmured, deeply, "which would set my
heart harder than a stone. I am King Tom, Rajah Laut, and fit to
look any man hereabouts in the face. I have my name to take care of.
Everything rests on that."

"Mr. d'Alcacer would express this by saying that everything rested on
honour," commented Mrs. Travers with lips that did not tremble, though
from time to time she could feel the accelerated beating of her heart.

"Call it what you like. It's something that a man needs to draw a free
breath. And look!--as you see me standing before you here I care for it
no longer."

"But I do care for it," retorted Mrs. Travers. "As you see me standing
here--I do care. This is something that is your very own. You have a
right to it. And I repeat I do care for it."

"Care for something of my own," murmured Lingard, very close to her
face. "Why should you care for my rights?"

"Because," she said, holding her ground though their foreheads were
nearly touching, "because if I ever get back to my life I don't want to
make it more absurd by real remorse."

Her tone was soft and Lingard received the breath of those words like a
caress on his face. D'Alcacer, in the Cage, made still another effort
to keep up his pacing. He didn't want to give Mr. Travers the slightest
excuse for sitting up again and looking round.

"That I should live to hear anybody say they cared anything for what
was mine!" whispered Lingard. "And that it should be you--you, who have
taken all hardness out of me."

"I don't want your heart to be made hard. I want it to be made firm."

"You couldn't have said anything better than what you have said just now
to make it steady," flowed the murmur of Lingard's voice with something
tender in its depth. "Has anybody ever had a friend like this?" he
exclaimed, raising his head as if taking the starry night to witness.

"And I ask myself is it possible that there should be another man on
earth that I could trust as I trust you. I say to you: Yes! Go and save
what you have a right to and don't forget to be merciful. I will not
remind you of our perfect innocence. The earth must be small indeed that
we should have blundered like this into your life. It's enough to make
one believe in fatality. But I can't find it in me to behave like a
fatalist, to sit down with folded hands. Had you been another kind of
man I might have been too hopeless or too disdainful. Do you know what
Mr. d'Alcacer calls you?"

Inside