ispering, kissing, and swimming
until his strength failed him--yes, he could drown himself and her, so
that they died locked fast in each other's arms, taking in death the
embraces that had been denied them in life.

He was crying now as a child cries, abandoning himself to his tears,
not troubling to wipe them away, temporarily overcome by self-pity.
But soon he shook off this particular form of weakness, and thought,
"What nonsense comes into a man's head, when he's once off his right
balance--such wild nonsense, such mad nonsense. Drown _her_, poor
innocent. Make her pay _my_ bill. Think of it even--when I'd swim the
Atlantic to save her life, if it was in danger."

And then the thought that had been the impetus or origin of these
fantastic imaginations presented itself again, and more strongly than
before. He said to himself, "This letter is my death-warrant. I can't
go on. It is my death-warrant."

He had made straight for the main ride, and he walked straight along
it in the direction of Kibworth Rocks. As he drew toward them it was
as if the spirit of the dead man called him, seeming to say: "Come and
keep me company. Our old quarrel is over. You and I understand each
other _now_. We are two of a kind, just as like as two hogs from one
litter--you the sanctimonious psalm-singer and I the conscienceless
profligate--we are brothers at last in our beastliness."

Dale walked with his hands clasped behind his back, thoughtfully
looking at the trees, and trying to suppress his wild imaginations.
But he could not suppress them. The dead man seemed to say, "Don't be
a humbug, don't pretend. You know we are alike. Why, when you looked
in the glass the other day, you _saw_ the resemblance. You saw my
puffy eye-orbits and my pendulous lip in your own face."

Dale shrugged his shoulders, held his head high, and grunted fiercely.
But when he was abreast of the rocks, this imagined voice seemed to
speak to him again.

"You and I have drawn so near together that there's only one
difference now--that you are alive and I am dead. But even that
difference will be gone soon."

And Dale, walking on rather slower than before, made an odd gesture of
his left hand, a wave of hand and arm together, as of a dignified
well-to-do citizen waving off some impudent mendicant: seeming to say,
"Be damned to you. Just you lie quiet where I put you, and don't
worry. I decline to have anything to do with you, or to allow the
slightest com