“Have you anything at all to say for yourself?”

Guy threw a single glance around.  “Not here,” he said.  “And not now.  I’ll meet you.  Where shall I meet you?”

“Why not here—­and now?” Burke’s hands were at his sides, hard clenched, as if it took all his strength to keep them there.  His eyes never stirred from Guy’s face.  They had the fixed and cruel look of a hawk about to pounce upon its prey and rend it to atoms.

But there was no fear about Guy, neither fear nor shame.  Whatever his sins had been, he had never flinched from the consequences.

He answered without an instant’s faltering:  “Because we shall be interrupted.  We don’t want a pack of women howling round.  Also, there are no weapons.  You haven’t even a sjambok.”  His eyes gleamed suddenly.  “And there isn’t space enough to use it if you had.”

“I don’t need even a sjambok,” Burke said, “to kill a rat like you.”

“No.  And I shan’t die so hard as a rat either.  All the same,” Guy spoke with quiet determination, “you can’t do it here.  Damn it, man!  Are you afraid I shall run away?”

“No!” The answer came like a blow.  “But I can’t wait, you accursed blackguard!  I’ve waited too long already.”

“No, you haven’t!” Guy straightened himself sharply, braced for violence, for Burke was close to him and there was something of the quality of a coiled spring in his attitude, a spring that a touch would release.  “Wait a minute, Burke!  Do you hear?  Wait a minute?  I’m everything you choose to call me.  I’m a traitor, a thief, and a blackguard.  But I’m another thing as well.”  His voice broke oddly and he continued in a lower key, rapidly, as if he feared his strength might not last.  “I’m a failure.  I haven’t done this thing I tried to do.  I never shall do it now.  Because—­your wife—­is incorruptible.  Her loyalty is greater than my—­treachery.”

Again there sounded that curious catch in his voice as if a remorseless hand were tightening upon his throat.  But he fought against it with a fierce persistence.  He faced Burke with livid, twitching lips.

“God knows,” he said in a passionate whisper, “whether she loves you.  But she will be true to you—­as long as you live!”

His words went into silence—­a silence so tense that it seemed as if it must end in furious action—­as if a hurtling blow and a crashing, headlong fall could be the only outcome.

But neither came.  After several rigid seconds Burke spoke, his voice dead level, without a hint of emotion.

“You expect me to believe that, do you?”

Guy made a sharp movement that had in it more of surprise than protest.  His throat worked spasmodically for a moment or two ere he forced it to utterance.

“Don’t you think,” he said then, in a half-strangled undertone, “that it would be a million times easier for me to let you believe—­otherwise?”