her. Both the Kiliats are praying you on their knees to go back to her. But I———”
Ormond’s words struck with all the force at his command:
“And do you know why I can go back to her? It’s because I’ve held myself clean and fit to serve her all these years! It’s because I’ve never messed away my life and gone downhill, without the courage or the determination to pull in. You’re a strong man, Randal! Father Denis told you that; and you’re young yet. How dare you ruin the only life you’ve got! Go away and make something of it—something worthy of such a man as you would be! Oh, Randal! you are a slinking coward, and that’s the best and the worst word of you.”
“If you were any other man,” said Randal, “I think I’d kill you for that! But I don’t suppose it would be worth it. Nothing is worth anything much. Love and hate, and all the other things a man lives for—they’re all rotten.”
He untied a blue ribbon that Effie’s fingers had tied, and shook the letters on the fire, watching with unmoving eyes as they unrolled and shivered into tinder. Ormond went back to the dark corner. These tongues of flame held Randal’s ear to-night.
The wind was muttering very restlessly in the tussock. The back log of totara fell in
