"What is there for me to do, except one thing?" said Willems, gloomily.

"Look here," said Lingard; "I picked you up as a boy, and consider
myself responsible for you in a way. You took your life into your own
hands many years ago--but still . . ."

He paused, listening, till he heard the regular grind of the oars in the
rowlocks of the approaching boat then went on again.

"I have made it all right with Hudig. You owe him nothing now. Go back
to your wife. She is a good woman. Go back to her."

"Why, Captain Lingard," exclaimed Willems, "she . . ."

"It was most affecting," went on Lingard, without heeding him. "I
went to your house to look for you and there I saw her despair. It was
heart-breaking. She called for you; she entreated me to find you. She
spoke wildly, poor woman, as if all this was her fault."

Willems listened amazed. The blind old idiot! How queerly he
misunderstood! But if it was true, if it was even true, the very idea of
seeing her filled his soul with intense loathing. He did not break
his oath, but he would not go back to her. Let hers be the sin of that
separation; of the sacred bond broken. He revelled in the extreme purity
of his heart, and he would not go back to her. Let her come back to him.
He had the comfortable conviction that he would never see her again,
and that through her own fault only. In this conviction he told himself
solemnly that if she would come to him he would receive her with
generous forgiveness, because such was the praiseworthy solidity of his
principles. But he hesitated whether he would or would not disclose to