“A man has his feelings, or may have, even when he’s mad.  He trusted me and he loved me, Doctor Mary.  Won’t you allow that I’ve my case—­so far?” She made no sign of assent.  “Well then, I loved him—­does that go any better with you?  If it doesn’t, I’m in a bad way; be cause what I’m giving you now is the strong part of my case.”

“I don’t see why you should put what you call your case to me at all, Mr. Beaumaroy.”

He looked at her in a reproachful astonishment.  “But you seemed touched by—­by what we saw in the Tower.  I thought the old man’s death and faith had appealed to you.  It seems to me that people can’t go through a thing like that together without feeling—­well, some sort of comradeship.  But if you’ve no sort of feeling of that kind—­well, I don’t want to put my case.”

“Go on with your case,” said Doctor Mary, after a moment’s silence.

“Though it isn’t really that I want to put a case for myself at all.  But I don’t mind owning that I’d like you to understand about it—­before I clear out.”

She looked at him questioningly, but put no spoken question.  Beaumaroy sat down on the stool opposite to her, and poked the fire.

“I can’t get away from it, can I?  There was something else you saw in the Tower, wasn’t there, and I dare say that you connect it with a conversation that we had together a little while ago?  Well, I’ll tell you about that.  Oh, well, of course I must, mustn’t I?”

“I should like to hear.”  Her bitterness was gone; he had come now to the riddle.

“He was a King to himself,” Beaumaroy resumed thoughtfully, “but in fact I was king over him.  I could do anything I liked with him.  I had him.  I possessed him—­by right of conquest.  The right of conquest seemed a big thing to me; it was about the only sort of right that I’d seen anything of for three years and more.  Yes, it was—­and is—­a big thing, a real thing—­the one right in the whole world that there’s no doubt about.  Other rights are theories, views, preachments!  Right of conquest is a fact.  I had it.  I could make him do what I liked, say what I liked, sign what I liked.  Do you begin to see where I found myself?  I say found myself, because really it was a surprise to me.  At first I thought he was in a pretty small way—­he only gave me a hundred a year besides my keep.  True, he always talked of his money, but I set that down mainly to his delusion.  But it was true that he had a lot—­really a lot.  A good bit besides what you saw in there; he must have speculated cleverly, I think, he couldn’t have made it all in his business.  Doctor Mary, how much gold do you think there is in the grave in there?”

“I haven’t the least idea.  Thousands?  Where did you get it?”

“Oh yes, thousands—­and thousands.  We got it mostly from the aliens in the East End; they’d hoarded it, you know; but they were willing to sell at a premium.  The premium rose up to last month; then it dropped a little—­not much, though, because we’d exhausted some of the most obvious sources.  I carried every sovereign of that money in the grave down from London in my brown bag.”  He smiled reflectively.  “Do you know how much a thousand sovereigns weigh, Doctor Mary?”