"Don't call it a crime," he protested. "That is how they speak of it who know nothing about it--that is how they will represent all my life, which has been different from theirs--to make you shun and shrink from me as if I had the small-pox. Wait till you know a little more." He was leaning forward with an elbow on his knee, and looking into her face. She met his eyes now in the uncertain moonlight, which was shining on her and not on him; and he saw no sign of shrinking yet. "Why did you do it?" she asked sorrowfully. "Long ago," he said, after a pause, "he and I fell in love with--some one; and she loved him best. At least I think she did--I don't know. Sometimes I fancy she would have cared most for me, if we had had our chances. But we had no chances; I had to give my word of honour not to stand between her and him--not to try to win her, unless she distinctly showed a preference for me." "I understand," whispered Rachel. She knew this part of the story already. "At any rate," he continued, "she made choice of him. He sold out of the service, and they went away together. I had sold out myself not long before, and went away too--travelling about the world. I was very lonely at that time; I didn't much care where I went or what became of me. It was several years before I saw or heard of her again." "Yes?" "And one night, when I had come back home to look after my property, I met her in London streets. It was the middle of winter--it was raining--she was all alone--she was almost in rags--" "Don't tell me any more!" implored Rachel, beginning to tremble and cry. "No," he said, and he drew a deep long breath, "I _can't_ tell you any more. Only this--she died. I did all I could to save her, but it was too late. She died of consumption--brought on by exposure and want, and misery of all sorts--a week or two after I found her. And now you know why I killed him. _That_ was why!" There was a long pause, broken once or twice by Rachel's audible emotion. She had still her own views as to the right and justice of what he had done; but she did not dream of the presumption of giving them now. This tremendous tragedy of love and revenge dwarfed all her theories of life to the merest trivialities. She could only wonder, and tremble, and cry. "It is an old story now," said Mr. Dalrymple, more gently. "And I try not to think too much of it. It was all fair, thank Heaven!--I comfort myself with that. I could have shot him once before in Canada; but he was unprepared then. He did not see me, and I would not take him at a disadvantage. I try not to think of it now. I don't want you to think of it either--after to-night. Will you try not to? And try not to let them persuade you that I am quite a fiend in human shape?" Rachel blew her nose for the last time, put her handkerchief in her pocket, and smiled a tearful smile. "I am afraid you are not very good," she said, shaking her head, "but I know you can't be a really wicked man."