“I began to tamper with it in my pride.  You begin to see a lot of things when you are going blind.  I could not be frank with an old chum even.  I was not frank with Massy—­no, not altogether.  I knew he took me for a wealthy sailor fool, and I let him.  I wanted to keep up my importance—­because there was poor Ivy away there—­my daughter.  What did I want to trade on his misery for?  I did trade on it—­for her.  And now, what mercy could I expect from him?  He would trade on mine if he knew it.  He would hunt the old fraud out, and stick to the money for a year.  Ivy’s money.  And I haven’t kept a penny for myself.  How am I going to live for a year.  A year!  In a year there will be no sun in the sky for her father.”

His deep voice came out, awfully veiled, as though he had been overwhelmed by the earth of a landslide, and talking to you of the thoughts that haunt the dead in their graves.  A cold shudder ran down Mr. Van Wyk’s back.

“And how long is it since you have . . .?” he began.

“It was a long time before I could bring myself to believe in this—­this visitation.”  Captain Whalley spoke with gloomy patience from under his hand.

He had not thought he had deserved it.  He had begun by deceiving himself from day to day, from week to week.  He had the Serang at hand there—­an old servant.  It came on gradually, and when he could no longer deceive himself . . .

His voice died out almost.

“Rather than give her up I set myself to deceive you all.”

“It’s incredible,” whispered Mr. Van Wyk.  Captain Whalley’s appalling murmur flowed on.

“Not even the sign of God’s anger could make me forget her.  How could I forsake my child, feeling my vigor all the time—­the blood warm within me?  Warm as yours.  It seems to me that, like the blinded Samson, I would find the strength to shake down a temple upon my head.  She’s a struggling woman—­my own child that we used to pray over together, my poor wife and I. Do you remember that day I as well as told you that I believed God would let me live to a hundred for her sake?  What sin is there in loving your child?  Do you see it?  I was ready for her sake to live for ever.  I half believed I would.  I’ve been praying for death since.  Ha!  Presumptuous man—­you wanted to live . . .”

A tremendous, shuddering upheaval of that big frame, shaken by a gasping sob, set the glasses jingling all over the table, seemed to make the whole house tremble to the roof-tree.  And Mr. Van Wyk, whose feeling of outraged love had been translated into a form of struggle with nature, understood very well that, for that man whose whole life had been conditioned by action, there could exist no other expression for all the emotions; that, to voluntarily cease venturing, doing, enduring, for his child’s sake, would have been exactly like plucking his warm love for her out of his living heart.  Something too monstrous, too impossible, even to conceive.