“I am not ill, Tregar!” he insisted curtly.  “Let me rest by the pool.  There is peace here and I am tired.  We traveled rapidly—­”

Nevertheless, for all his feverish denial, his desperate attempts to keep to the thread of desultory talk were pitiful.  He frowned heavily, began his sentences slowly and trailed off incoherently to a halt and silence.

The Baron turned compassionately away from him to Mic-co with a question.

“Names,” said Mic-co, “are nothing to me, Baron Tregar.  They are merely a part of that great world from which I live apart.  I am a Heidelberg man, since you feel sufficiently interested to inquire.  Though my choice of a profession was merely a careless desire to know some one thing well, I have never regretted it.”

“I—­I beg your pardon,” stammered the Baron and glanced keenly at Mic-co.

“It is a habit of mine,” hinted Mic-co, “to take what confidence a man may offer and let him withhold what he will.”

“There is nothing to withhold!” flashed Ronador with sudden fierceness.  “Why do you speak of it?”

Mic-co thought of a white-faced young fellow who had stubbornly refused to accept his hospitality, one morning beneath the live oaks, until he might name aloud his offenses in the sight of God and Man.  This man before him, sweeping rapidly into the black gulf of delirium, was of a different caliber.

By the pool Ronador leaped suddenly, his face quite colorless save where the flame of fever burned in his cheeks.

“That Voice!” he said, standing in curious attitude of listening.  “You hear it, Tregar?  Always—­always it comes so in the quietest hours.  Tell him!  Tell him!  Why should I tell him?  What is he to me?  I may not purchase relief at the price of any man’s respect.  Only Tregar knows.  Hush!—­In God’s name, hush!  Thou shalt not kill!  Thou shalt not kill!” He seemed, without conscious effort, to be repeating the words of this Voice with which he held this terrible communion, and waved Tregar back with an imperious gesture of defiance.  Facing Mic-co he flung out his arm.

“I am a murderer in the sight of God and Man!” he choked.  “I murdered my cousin Theodomir for a dream of empire.  I can not forget—­Oh, God!  I can not forget.  The Voice bids me tell!”

He dropped wildly to his knees, his eyes imploring.

“Oh, God!” he prayed with pallid lips, “hear this, my prayer.  I have paid in black hours of bitter suffering.  I have played and lost and the fire of life is but ashes in my hand.  Give me peace—­peace!”

He stayed so long upon his knees that Tregar touched him gently on the shoulder.

“Ronador,” he said gently.  “Come.  You are very ill and know not what you say.”

Ronador staggered blindly to his feet.  Once more he waved the Baron aside and took up his terrible dialogue with the inner Voice.