“I can’t!  I can’t—­not now!”

“Bat!—­can’t you see that she’s the kind who would understand and forgive?  She loves you.”

The walls appeared to rock; bulging shadows reached out; the candle flames became mocking eyes; and the blood drummed thunderously in Spurlock’s ears.  The door to the apocalypse had opened!

“Loves me? . . .  Ruth?”

“Why the devil not?  Why do you suppose she married you if she didn’t love you?  While you read I watched her face.  It was in her eyes—­the big thing that comes but once.  But you!  Why the devil did you marry her?  That’s the thing that confounds me.”

“God help me, what a muddle!” The cigar crumbled in Spurlock’s hand.

“All life is a muddle, and we are all muddlers, more or less.  It is a matter of degree.  Lord, I am sixty.  For thirty years I have lived alone; but once upon a time I lived among men.  I know life.  I sit back now, letting life slip by and musing upon it; and I find my loneliness sweet.  I have had my day; and there were women in it.  So, when I tell you she loves you, I know.  Supposing they find you and take you away?—­and she unprepared?  Have you thought of that?  Why did you marry her?”

“God alone knows!”

“And you don’t love her!  What kind of a woman do you want, anyhow?”—­with rising anger.  He saw the tragedy on the boy’s face; but he was merciless.  “Are you a poltroon, after all?”

“That’s it!  I ought to have died that night!”

“Or is there a taint of insanity in your family history?  Alone and practically penniless like yourself!  You weren’t even stirred by gratitude.  You just married her.  Lad, that fuddles me!”

“Did you bring me down here to crucify me?” cried Spurlock, in passionate rebellion.

“No, lad,” said McClintock, his tone becoming kindly.  “Only, what you have done is out of all human calculation.  You did not marry her because you loved her; you did not marry because she might have had money; you did not marry her out of gratitude; you did not marry her because you had to.  You just married her!  But there she is—­’with her eyes full of sapphires and her mouth full of pearls’!” McClintock quoted with gentle irony.  “What have you got there in your breast—­a stone?  Is there blood or water in your veins?”

The dam broke, but not with violence.  A vast relief filled Spurlock’s heart as he decided to tell this man everything which related to Ruth.  This island was the one haven he had; he might be forced to remain here for several years—­until the Hand had forgotten him.  He must win this man’s confidence, even at the risk of being called mad.  So, in broken, rather breathless phrases, he told his story; and when he had done, he laid his arms upon the table and bent his head to them.

There followed a silence which endured several minutes; or, rather a tableau.  The candles—­for McClintock never used oil in his dining room—­were burning low in the sconces.  Occasionally the flames would bend, twist and writhe crazily as the punka-boy bestirred himself.