-"because--he was sorry.
Now--now--he is doing it"--suddenly her smile flashed out, with its
touch of humour--"just simply because he likes it!"

It was a bold assertion. She knew it. But she straightened her slight
shoulders, prepared to stick to it.

Radowitz shook his head.

"And what am I doing it for? Do you remember when I said to you I
loathed him?"

"No--not him."

"Well, something in him--the chief thing, it seemed to me then. I felt
towards him really--as a man might feel towards his murderer--or the
murderer of some one else, some innocent, helpless person who had given
no offence. Hatred--loathing--abhorrence!--you couldn't put it too
strongly. Well then,"--he began poking at the fire, while he went on
thinking aloud--"God brought us together in that strange manner. By the
way"--he turned to her--"are you a Christian?"

"I--I don't know. I suppose I am."

"I am," he said firmly. "I am a practising Catholic. Catholicism with us
Poles is partly religion, partly patriotism--do you understand? I go to
confession--I am a communicant. And for some time I couldn't go to
Communion at all. I always felt Falloden's hand on my shoulder, as he
was pushing me down the stairs; and I wanted to kill him!--just that!
You know our Polish blood runs hotter than yours. I didn't want the
college to punish him. Not at all. It was my affair. After I saw you in
town, it grew worse--it was an obsession. When we first got to
Yorkshire, Sorell and I, and I knew that Falloden was only a few miles
away, I never could get quit of it--of the thought that some
day--somewhere--I should kill him. I never, if I could help it, crossed
a certain boundary line that I had made for myself, between our side of
the moor, and the side which belonged to the Fallodens. I couldn't be
sure of myself if I had come upon him unawares. Oh, of course, he would
soon have got the better of me--but there would have been a struggle--I
should have attacked him--and I might have had a revolver. So for your
sake"--he turned to look at her with his hollow blue eyes--"I kept away.
Then, one evening, I quite forgot all about it. I was thinking of the
theme for the slow movement in my symphony, and I didn't notice where I
was going. I walked on and on over the hill--and at last I heard a man
groaning--and there was Sir Arthur by the stream. I saw at once that he
was dying. There I sat, alone with him. He asked me not to leave him. He
said something about Dougla