ather's death--a pauper he was. I remembered how near I
had been to starvation. I remembered the years I had spent in a garret
whilst Douglas had idled time away at Oxford, had left there to trifle
with the business his father had founded, had his West End club, hunters,
and shooting. It was a vicious, mad, jealous hatred, perhaps, but I claim
that it was human. I went out of that little house and it seemed to me
that there was a new lust in my heart, a new, craving desire. If I had
thrown myself into that canal, they might well have called it temporary
insanity. I didn't, but I was mad all the same. Anything else I did--was
temporary insanity!"

Her hand suddenly came back again and she leaned towards him through the
darkness.

"You poor child," she whispered. "Stop there, please. Don't be afraid to
think you've told me this. You see, I am of the world, and I know that we
are all only human. Now, twice up and down the deck, and not a word. Then
I shall ask you something."

So they passed on, side by side, the touch of her fingers keeping this
new courage alive in his heart, his head uplifted even to the stars
towards which their rolling mast pointed. It was wonderful, this--to tell
the truth, to open the door of his heart!

"Now I am going to ask you something," she said, when they turned for the
third time. "You may think it a strange question, but you must please
answer it. To me it is rather important. Just what were your feelings for
Beatrice?"

"I think I was fond of her," he answered thoughtfully. "I know that I
hated her when she came in from the schoolhouse--when I understood. Both
of us, in the days of our joint poverty, had scoffed at principles, had
spoken boldly enough of sin, but I can only say that when she came, when
I looked into her eyes, I seemed to have discovered a new horror in life.
I can't analyse it. I am not sure, even now, that I was not more of a
beast that I had thought myself. I am not sure that part of my rage was
not because she had escaped and I couldn't."

"But your personal feelings--that is what I want to know about?" she
persisted.

He dug down into his consciousness to satisfy her.

"Think of what my life in London had been," he reminded her. "There
wasn't a single woman I knew, with whom I could exchange a word. All the
time I loved beautiful things, and beautiful women, and the thought of
them. I have gone out into the streets at nights sometimes and hung
around the entr