dressing-gown against the whitewashed wall.

"Fooled by a silly, rascally innkeeper!" Heyst went on. "Talked over
like a pair of children with a promise of sweets!"

"I didn't talk with that disgusting animal," muttered Mr. Jones
sullenly; "but he convinced Martin, who is no fool."

"I should think he wanted very much to be convinced," said Heyst, with
the courteous intonation so well known in the Islands. "I don't want to
disturb your touching trust in your--your follower, but he must be the
most credulous brigand in existence. What do you imagine? If the story
of my riches were ever so true, do you think Schomberg would have
imparted it to you from sheer altruism? Is that the way of the world,
Mr. Jones?"

For a moment the lower jaw of Ricardo's gentleman dropped; but it came
up with a snap of scorn, and he said with spectral intensity:

"The beast is cowardly! He was frightened, and wanted to get rid of
us, if you want to know, Mr. Heyst. I don't know that the material
inducement was so very great, but I was bored, and we decided to accept
the bribe. I don't regret it. All my life I have been seeking new
impressions, and you have turned out to be something quite out of
the common. Martin, of course, looks to the material results. He's
simple--and faithful--and wonderfully acute."

"Ah, yes! He's on the track--" and now Heyst's speech had the character
of politely grim raillery--"but not sufficiently on the track, as
yet, to make it quite convenient to shoot me without more ado. Didn't
Schomberg tell you precisely where I conceal the fruit of my rapines?
Pah! Don't you know he would have told you anything, true or false, from
a very clear motive? Revenge! Mad hate--the unclean idiot!"

Mr Jones did not seem very much moved. On his right hand the doorway
incessantly flickered with distant lightning, and the continuous rumble
of thunder went on irritatingly, like the growl of an inarticulate giant
muttering fatuously.

Heyst overcame his immense repugnance to allude to her whose image,
cowering in the forest was constantly before his eyes, with all the
pathos and force of its appeal, august, pitiful, and almost holy to him.
It was in a hurried, embarrassed manner that he went on:

"If it had not been for that girl whom he persecuted with his insane and
odious passion, and who threw herself on my protection, he would never
have--but you know well enough!"

"I don't know!" burst out Mr. Jones with amazing heat