[53] Note.

I raised my hand to knock his lies down his throat—­and dropped it.  They were not lies, I knew, and the fellow had been faithful to me for many years and—­the folly of childish human vanity—­I felt he knew I was a “gentleman,” and I liked him for it.

I paid him his wages then and there, gave him a present and a good testimonial and discharged him.  He wept real tears and shook with sobs of grief—­easy grief, but very genuine.

When Dolores came home from the Bandstand I said quietly:  “Show me the jewellery Burker sent you, Dolly.  I am very much in earnest, so don’t bluster.”

She seemed about to faint and looked very frightened—­perhaps my face was more expressive than a gentleman’s should be.

“It was only a little thing for my birthday,” she whined.  “Can’t I keep it?  Don’t be a tyrant or a fool.”

“Your next birthday or your last?” I asked.  “Please get it at once.  We’ll settle matters quietly and finally.”

I fear the poor girl had visions of the doorstep and a closed door.  Two, perhaps, for I am sure Burker would not have taken her in if I had turned her out, and she may have thought the same.

It was a diamond ring, and the scoundrel must have given a couple of months’ pay for it—­if he had paid for it at all.  I thrust aside the sudden conviction that Burker’s own taste could not have been responsible for its choice and that it was selected by my wife.

“Why should he give you this, Dolores?” I asked.  “Will you tell me or must I go to him?” And then she burst into tears and flung herself at my feet, begging for mercy.

Mercy!

Qui s’excuse s’accuse.

What should I do?

To cast her out was to murder her soul quickly and her body slowly, and
I could foresee her career with prophetic eye and painful clearness.

And what could the Law do for me?

Publish our shame and perhaps brand me that wretched thing—­the willingly deceived and complaisant husband.

What could I do by challenging Burker?

He was a champion man-at-arms, a fine boxer, and a younger, stronger man, I should merely experience humiliation and defeat.  What could I do?

If I said, “Go and live with your Burker,” I should be committing a bigger crime than hers, for if he did take her in, it would not be for long.

I sat the night through, pondered the question carefully, looked at it from all points of view and—­decided that Burker must die.  Also that he must not drag me to jail or the scaffold as he went to his doom.  If I shot him and was punished, Dolores would become a—­well, as I have said, her soul would die quickly and her body slowly.  I had married Dolores and I must do what lay in my power to protect Dolores.  But I simply could not kill the hound in some stealthy secret manner and wait for the footsteps of warrant-armed police for the rest of my life.