I had received letters at Boulogne, which informed me that my wife
and family had accepted an invitation to stay with some friends at
the sea-side. Under these circumstances I was entirely at his service.
Having quieted his anxiety on this point, I reminded him of what
had passed between us on board the steamboat. He tried to change
the subject. My curiosity was too strongly aroused to permit this; I
persisted in helping his memory.

"We were looking into the engine-room," I said; "and you asked me what I
heard there. You promised to tell me what _you_ heard, as soon as we got
on shore--"

He stopped me, before I could say more.

"I begin to think it was a delusion," he answered. "You ought not to
interpret too literally what a person in my dreadful situation may say.
The stain of another man's blood is on me--"

I interrupted him in my turn. "I refuse to hear you speak of yourself
in that way," I said. "You are no more responsible for the Frenchman's
death than if you had been driving, and had accidentally run over him in
the street. I am not the right companion for a man who talks as you do.
The proper person to be with you is a doctor." I really felt irritated
with him--and I saw no reason for concealing it.

Another man, in his place, might have been offended with me. There was a
native sweetness in Romayne's disposition, which asserted itself even in
his worst moments of nervous irritability. He took my hand.