Tydomin’s face took on a hard look.  “So you are guilty of two deaths.”

There was a dreadful silence.

“Why couldn’t you believe me?” asked Maskull, who was pale and sweating painfully.

“Who gave you the right to kill him?” demanded Tydomin sternly.

He said nothing, and perhaps did not hear her question.

She sighed two or three times and began to stir restlessly.  “Since you murdered him, you must help me bury him.”

“What’s to be done?  This is a most fearful crime.”

“You art a most fearful man.  Why did you come here, to do all this?  What are we to you?”

“Unfortunately you are right.”

Another pause ensued.

“It’s no use standing here,” said Tydomin.  “Nothing can be done.  You must come with me.”

“Come with you?  Where to?”

“To Disscourn.  There’s a burning lake on the far side of it.  He always wished to be cast there after death.  We can do that after Blodsombre—­in the meantime we must take him home.”

“You’re a callous, heartless woman.  Why should he be buried when that poor girl must remain unburied?”

“You know that’s out of the question,” replied Tydomin quietly.

Maskull’s eyes roamed about agitatedly, apparently seeing nothing.

“We must do something,” she continued.  “I shall go.  You can’t wish to stay here alone?”

“No, I couldn’t stay here—­and why should I want to?  You want me to carry the corpse?”

“He can’t carry himself, and you murdered him.  Perhaps it will ease your mind to carry it.”

“Ease my mind?” said Maskull, rather stupidly.

“There’s only one relief for remorse, and that’s voluntary pain.”

“And have you no remorse?” he asked, fixing her with a heavy eye.

“These crimes are yours, Maskull,” she said in a low but incisive voice.

They walked over to Crimtyphon’s body, and Maskull hoisted it on to his shoulders.  It weighed heavier than he had thought.  Tydomin did not offer to assist him to adjust the ghastly burden.

She crossed the isthmus, followed by Maskull.  Their path lay through sunshine and shadow.  Branchspell was blazing in a cloudless sky, the heat was insufferable—­streams of sweat coursed down his face, and the corpse seemed to grow heavier and heavier.  Tydomin always walked in front of him.  His eyes were fastened in an unseeing stare on her white, womanish calves; he looked neither to right nor left.  His features grew sullen.  At the end of ten minutes he suddenly allowed his burden to slip off his shoulders on to the ground, where it lay sprawled every which way.  He called out to Tydomin.

She quickly looked around.

“Come here.  It has just occurred to me”—­he laughed—­“why should I be carrying this corpse—­and why should I be following you at all?  What surprises me is, why this has never struck me before.”