"What are you talking about now?" said the other angrily. "I'll swear
you knew something of that hole and meant to see me go down through it."

Ringfield smiled with that slow, wry smile of his.

"I knew nothing of the hole. But I am not so sure that I would be
sorry if I saw you go down through it this moment, so long as it was
not my direct work. You and I can never be friends. You and I cannot
expect tolerance of each other. We are enemies, we must always be
enemies, to the death--to the death!"

Crabbe had, as usual, the upper hand in ease and coolness, and being
now quite restored in physical courage he began to note the signs of
illness and misery in the other's face. He was almost sorry for him
and said so.

"I'm sorry for all this, Ringfield, I really am. It's some
misunderstanding, I suppose. I can't blame you for admiring Pauline.
I don't blame you for it. You're a man, despite your calling, same as
I am. And I have liked you better since you have shown me your rough
side.--By Heaven, I have, Ringfield! Things have turned out in an
unexpected way with me, and you have suffered on account, and if not in
silence, as we might look for from you, why, it only proves you a man
like the rest of us! You'll get over it, you know. She's to leave
here for good with me the day after to-morrow; everything's settled and
it's much the best thing that could happen for both of us. I wish you
would be reasonable and understand this and make her going away easier."

This rambling speech was received at first in silence, then Ringfield
spoke, his slow utterances affording a contrast to the half-jocular,
half-querulous words of the ex-guide.

"That word reasonable! Be reasonable! You--you ask me to be
reasonable! As if I were at fault, as if I were doing her the injury!
God knows I have my own battle to fight, my own self to overcome, but
that is beside the question. Do you see nothing unreasonable in your
own relation to--to Miss Clairville? When I came here--and God knows
I'm sorry at times I ever came or stayed--I met Miss Clairville. I
talked to her and she to me. I learned her mind, or thought I did. I
fathomed her heart, or she allowed me to think so, and thus I became
acquainted with her story, the story that is concerned with her young
life and with you. I was deeply affected, deeply moved, deeply
interested--how could it be otherwise! And then to my eternal sorrow,
as I fear, I grew to lov