But I have been nearly off my chump for three days with worry; and it suddenly struck me: ‘What if it’s the Devil who has sent him?’”

“I have no connection with the supernatural,” said Heyst graciously, moving on. “Nobody has sent me. I just happened along.”

“I know better,” contradicted Morrison. “I may be unworthy, but I have been heard. I know it. I feel it. For why should you offer—“

Heyst inclined his head, as from respect for a conviction in which he could not share. But he stuck to his point by muttering that in the presence of an odious fact like this, it was natural —

Later in the day, the fine paid, and the two of them on board the brig, from which the guard had been removed, Morrison who, besides, being a gentleman was also an honest fellow began to talk about repayment. He knew very well his inability to lay by any sum of money. It was partly the fault of circumstances and partly of his temperament; and it would have been very difficult to apportion the responsibility between the two. Even Morrison himself could not say, while confessing to the fact. With a worried air he ascribed it to fatality:

“I don’t know how it is that I’ve never been able to save. It’s some sort of curse. There’s always a bill or two to meet.”

He plunged his hand into his pocket for the famous notebook so well known in the islands, the fetish of his hopes, and fluttered the pages feverishly.

“And yet—look,” he went on. “There it is—more than five thousand dollars owing. Surely that’s something.”

He ceased suddenly. Heyst, who had been all the time trying to look as unconcerned as he could, made reassuring noises in his throat. But Morrison was not only honest. He was honourable, too; and on this stressful day, before this amazing emissary of Providence and in the revulsion of his feelings, he made his great renunciation. He cast off the abiding illusion of his existence.

“No. No. They are not good. I’ll never be able to squeeze them. Never. I’ve been saying for years I would, but I give it up. I never really believed I could. Don’t reckon on that, Heyst. I have robbed you.”

Poor Morrison actually laid his head on the cabin table, and remained in that crushed attitude while Heyst talked to him soothingly with the utmost courtesy. The Swede was as much distressed as Morrison; for he understood the other’s feelings perfectly. No decent feeling was ever scorned by Heyst.