“If you will study the antique busts,” he said, “you will find that Socrates is Silenus dignified.  I choose to believe in the infinite capacities of all men—­and in the spirit in all.  And so I try to restore my poor boy his capacities and his spirit.  But that was not all.  The time was coming when I could do no more for him, when the little education of books would be finish’ and he must go out in the world again to learn—­all newly—­how to make of himself a man of use.  That is the time of danger, and the thought was troubling me when I learned that Madame Harman was here, near this inn, of which I knew.  So I brought him.”

“The inconceivable selfishness, the devilish brutality of it!” Ward’s face was scarlet.  “You didn’t care how you sacrificed her—­”

“Sacrificed!” The professor suddenly released the huge volume of his voice.  “Sacrificed!” he thundered.  “If I could give him back to her as he is now, it would be restoring to her all that she had loved in him, the real self of him!  It would be the greatest gift in her life.”

“You speak for her?” demanded Ward, the question coming like a lawyer’s.  It failed to disturb Keredec, who replied quietly: 

“It is a quibble.  I speak for her, yes, my dear sir.  Her action in defiance of her family and her friends proved the strength of what she felt for the man she married; that she have remained with him three years—­until it was impossible—­proved its persistence; her letters, which I read with reverence, proved its beauty—­to me.  It was a living passion, one that could not die.  To let them see each other again; that was all I intended.  To give them their new chance—­and then, for myself, to keep out of the way.  That was why—­” he turned to me—­“that was why I have been guilty of pretending to have that bad rheumatism, and I hope you will not think it an ugly trick of me!  It was to give him his chance freely; and though at first I had much anxiety, it was done.  In spite of all his wicked follies theirs had been a true love, and nothing in this world could be more inevitable than that they should come together again if the chance could be given.  And they have, my dear sirs!  It has so happened.  To him it has been a wooing as if for the first time; so she has preferred it, keeping him to his mistake of her name.  She feared that if he knew that it was the same as his own he might ask questions of me, and, you see, she did not know that I had made this little plan, and was afraid—­”

“We are not questioning Mrs. Harman’s motives,” George interrupted hotly, “but yours!”

“Very well, my dear sir; that is all.  I have explained them.”

“You have?” I interjected.  “Then, my dear Keredec, either you are really insane or I am!  You knew that this poor, unfortunate devil of a Harman was tied to that hyenic prowler yonder who means to fatten on him, and will never release him; you knew that.  Then why did you bring him down here to fall in love with a woman he can never have?  In pity’s name, if you didn’t hope to half kill them both, what did you mean?”