tart then) "when I told him how the 'Fly Away' went down to
Davy, and her lovers went aloft, reefed close afore the wind--'Then,'
says he, 'they've got a damned sound seaman on the Jordan, and so help
me! him that's good enough to row my girl from open sea, gales poundin'
and breakers showin' teeth across the bar to Maita Point, is good enough
for use where seas is still and reefs ain't fashionable.'"

Roscoe's face looked haggard as it now turned towards us. "If you will
meet me," he said to the stranger, "to-morrow morning, in Mr. Devlin's
office at Viking, I will hand you over Phil Boldrick's legacy."

The man made as if he would shake hands with Roscoe, who appeared not to
notice the motion, and then said: "I'll be there. You can bank on that;
and, as we used to say down in the Spicy Isles, where neither of you
have been, I s'pose, Talofa!"

He swung away down the hillside.

Roscoe turned to me. "You see, Marmion, all things circle to a centre.
The trail seems long, but the fox gets killed an arm's length from his
hole."

"Not always. You take it too seriously," I said. "You are no fox."

"That man will be in at the death," he persisted.

"Nonsense, Roscoe. He does not know you. What has he to do with you?
This is overwrought nerves. You are killing yourself with worry."

He was motionless and silent for a minute. Then he said very quietly:
"No, I do not think that I really worry now. I have known"--here he laid
his hand upon my shoulder and his eyes had a shining look--"what it is
to be happy, unspeakably happy, for a moment; and that stays with me. I
am a coward no longer."

He drew his finger tips slowly across his forehead. Then he continued:
"To-morrow I shall be angry with myself, no doubt, for having that
moment's joy, but I cannot feel so now. I shall probably condemn myself
for cruel selfishness; but I have touched life's highest point this
afternoon, Marmion."

I drew his hand down from my shoulder and pressed it. It was cold.
He withdrew his eyes from the mountain, and said: "I have had dreams,
Marmion, and they are over. I lived in one: to expiate--to wipe out--a
past, by spending my life for others. The expiation is not enough. I
lived in another: to win a woman's love; and I have, and was caught
up by it for a moment, and it was wonderful. But it is over now, quite
over. ... And now for her sake renunciation must be made, before I have
another dream--a long one, Marmion."

I had foreboding