As she thus sat there gazing dreamily into the fire, the man on the cot stirred, uttered a slight moan, opened his eyes and looked at the girl.

“Ah, so you’ve been keeping watch, have you?” he asked.  “Pretty lonely job, isn’t it?”

“Not at all,” Jean brightly replied, laying aside the book and rising to her feet.  “I have been looking at your books.  My, what a reader you must be!  But why do you read such stuff as that?”

“What stuff?  I hope you don’t call Shakespeare’s works ‘stuff.’”

“Oh, I am merely referring to Timon’s curse.  It is terrible.  But, there, I don’t want to talk about it.  Let me make you a cup of tea.  That will do you more good than any book.”

“Make it good and strong,” the man reminded.  “And while you are about it you might as well bring me a noggin of rum.  I haven’t had any since yesterday morning.”

The invalid drank the tea first, and pronounced it excellent.  He let the rum remain by his side while he filled and lighted his pipe.

“Did you have a good sleep?” Jean asked as she again sat down by the table.  “I hope you feel better.”

“I had a fairly good sleep, Miss, although the pain in my side is no better.  However, I am used to suffering.  So you don’t care for Shakespeare, eh?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jean defended.  “But I don’t like reading those terrible passages about curses and such like.”

“But I like them, Miss.  They just suit me, and I feed on them.”

“How can you?  It is more than I can understand.”

“You would, though, if you had been treated as I have been.  I am Timon, and his sufferings were no greater than mine.  His so-called friends were false to him, and so were mine.  He cursed them, and I have made his curses mine.  I am really Timon.”

“Suppose I call you ‘Timon,’ then,” Jean suggested with a smile.  “I don’t know what else to call you, for I do not know your name.  ’Mr. Timon’ sounds very well, does it not?”

“Yes, you may call me anything you like.  I suppose Timon is as good as any other name.  And it suits me, too.”

“You must have had a hard life,” Jean replied, not knowing what else to say.  “It has evidently made you very bitter against your fellow men.”

“Hard is not a strong enough word, Miss.  You see that copy of the ‘Aeneid’?  Well, I read as much of that as I do Shakespeare.  I like to follow the history of Old Aeneas.  Many of his troubles were mine, and truly has Virgil sung of them.  He was an exile by fate, and so am I. He had many wanderings, and so have I. He was treated with base ingratitude, and so was I. Yes, Timon and Aeneas are my brothers in tribulation.  Like them I hate and curse my enemies.”

“But this is a Christian age,” Jean reminded.  “We are taught by our Great Master to love our enemies, to bless and curse not.”

“What! love King George, that crazy fool?  Love a thing that brought on the war?  Love a creature with the brains of a mouse?  Nonsense.  I don’t believe the Lord ever meant us to love such a being.”