eager at last--"that he
decided she was right? That I'm right--that we're all of us right?"

Havelock the Dane bowed his head in his huge hands. "No. If you ask me,
I think he kept his own opinion untarnished to the end. When I told him
I thought he was right, he just nodded, as if one took that for granted.
But it didn't matter to him. I am pretty sure that he cared only what
_she_ thought."

"If he didn't agree with her? And if she had treated him like a
criminal? He must have despised her, in that case."

"He never said one word of her--bar quoting some of _her_ words--that
wasn't utterly gentle. You could see that he loved her with his whole
soul. And--it's my belief--he gave her the benefit of the doubt. In
killing himself, he acted on the hypothesis that she had been right. It
was the one thing he could do for her."

"But if no one except you thinks it was suicide--and you can't prove
it--"

"Oh, he had to take that chance--the chance of her never knowing--or
else create a scandal. And that would have been very hard on her and on
his family. But there were straws she could easily clutch at--as I have
clutched at them. The perfect order in which everything happened to be
left--even the last notes he had made. His laboratory was a scientist's
paradise, they tell me. And the will, made after she threw him over,
leaving everything to her. Not a letter unanswered, all little bills
paid, and little debts liquidated. He came as near suggesting it as he
could, in decency. But I dare say she will never guess it."

"Then what did it profit him?"

"It didn't profit him, in your sense. He took a very long chance on her
guessing. That wasn't what concerned him."

"I hope she will never guess, anyhow. It would ruin her life, to no good
end."

"Oh, no." Havelock was firm. "I doubt if she would take it that way. If
she grasped it at all, she'd believe he thought her right. And if he
thought her right, of course he wouldn't want to live, would he? She
would never think he killed himself simply for love of her."

"Why not?"

"Well, she wouldn't? She wouldn't be able to conceive of Ferguson's
killing himself merely for that--with _his_ notions about survival."

"As he did."

"As he did--and didn't."

"Ah, she'd scarcely refine on it as you are doing, Havelock. You're
amazing."

"Well, he certainly never expected her to know that he did it himself.
If he had been the sort of weakling that dies because he can't ha