om could lay a separate sin at Victor Durnovo's door. He was
gone beyond the reach of human justice to the Higher Court where the
Extenuating Circumstance is fully understood. The generosity of that
silence was infectious, and they told her nothing. Had they spoken she
would perforce have believed them; but then, as she herself said, it
would have made "so little difference." So Victor Durnovo leaves these
pages, and all we can do is to remember the writing on the ground. Who
amongst us dares to withhold the Extenuating Circumstance? Who is ready
to leave this world without that crutch to lean upon? Given a mixed
blood--evil black with evil white and what can the result be but evil?
Given the climate of Western Africa and the mental irritation thereof,
added to a lack of education and the natural vice inherent in man, and
you have--Victor Durnovo.

Nestorius--the shameless--stretched out his little bare limbs and turned
half over on his side. He looked from one face to the other with the
grave wonder that was his. He had never been taken much notice of. His
short walks in life had been very near the ground, where trifles look
very large, and from whence those larger stumbling-blocks which occupy
our attention are quite invisible. He had been the third--the solitary
third child who usually makes his own interest in life, and is left by
or leaves the rest of his family.

It was not quite clear to him why he was the centre of so much
attention. His mind did not run to the comprehension of the fact that he
was the wearer of borrowed plumes--the sable plumes of King Death.

He had always wanted to get on to the kitchen table--there was much
there that interested him, and supplied him with food for thought. He
had risked his life on more than one occasion in attempts to scale that
height with the assistance of a saucepan that turned over and poured
culinary delicacies on his toes, or perhaps a sleeping cat that got up
and walked away much annoyed. And now that he was at last at this dizzy
height he was sorry to find that he was too tired to crawl about and
explore the vast possibilities of it. He was rather too tired to convey
his forefinger to his mouth, and was forced to work out mental problems
without that aid to thought.

Presently his eyes fell on Guy Oscard's face, and again his own small
features expanded into a smile.

"Bad case!" he said, and, turning over, he nestled down into the pillow,
and he had the answer