a murderer in the sight of men?  Not so; there were other means—­other roads, leading to the same end if the tired brain could only plan them out.  Slowly I dragged my aching limbs to the fallen trunk of a tree and sat down, still holding the dying rose-leaves in my clinched palm.  There was a surging noise in my ears—­my mouth tasted of blood, my lips were parched and burning as with fever.  “A white-haired fisherman.”  That was me!  The king had said so.  Mechanically I looked down at the clothes I wore—­the former property of a suicide.  “He was a fool,” the vender of them had said, “he killed himself.”

Yes, there was no doubt of it—­he was a fool.  I would not follow his example, or at least not yet.  I had something to do first—­something that must be done if I could only see my way clear to it.  Yes—­if I could only see my way and follow it straightly, resolutely, remorselessly!  My thoughts were confused, like the thoughts of a fever-stricken man in delirium—­the scent of the rose-leaves I held sickened me strangely—­yet I would not throw them from me; no, I would keep them to remind me of the embraces I had witnessed!  I felt for my purse!  I found and opened it, and placed the withering red petals carefully within it.  As I slipped it again in my pocket I remembered the two leathern pouches I carried—­the one filled with gold, the other with the jewels I had intended for—­her.  My adventures in the vault recurred to me; I smiled as I recollected the dire struggle I had made for life and liberty.  Life and liberty!—­of what use were they to me now, save for one thing—­ revenge?  I was not wanted; I was not expected back to refill my former place on earth—­the large fortune I had possessed was now my wife’s by the decree of my own last will and testament, which she would have no difficulty in proving.  But still, wealth was mine—­the hidden stores of the brigands were sufficient to make any man more than rich for the term of his natural life.  As I considered this, a sort of dull pleasure throbbed in my veins.  Money!  Anything could be done for money—­gold would purchase even vengeance.  But what sort of vengeance?  Such a one as I sought must be unique—­refined, relentless, and complete.  I pondered deeply.  The evening wind blew freshly up from the sea; the leaves of the swaying trees whispered mysteriously together; the nightingales warbled on with untired sweetness; and the moon, like the round shield of an angel warrior, shone brightly against the dense blue background of the sky.  Heedless of the passing of hours, I sat still, lost in a bewildered reverie.  “There was always a false note somewhere when he sung!” So she had said, laughing that little laugh of hers as cold and sharp as the clash of steel.  True, true; by all the majesty of Heaven, most true!  There was indeed a false note—­jarring, not so much the voice as the music of life itself.  There is stuff in all of us that will weave, as we desire it, into a web of stately or simple harmony;