"Understand?" he repeated, and through her tense absorption she was astonished to see on his face an incredible look of pity. "Understand? Why, of course! And it's too bad, my girl. Poor Eleanor! Die in a year--why wouldn't I understand? But never mind"--he seemed to search clumsily for words of cheer. "Death isn't anything but an incident in the scheme of life--a precious contemptible one, I've no doubt. We live, and that's a little thing--but death's littler. I dare say we live as long as we need to. Who was the old chap--Plotinus, wasn't it?--conceived the body to be a penitential mechanism for the soul? All the better if we expiate early. Gad! I must have had a quantity of things to atone for--though I'm really younger than you may think, Nell. Poor girl--poor girl!" He brightened as he drained his glass to her. "Here's to you, wherever you are. Come, be cheerful anyway. What was it struck in my mind yesterday?--a sentence from one of Arbuthnot's letters to Swift--just the meat for you--'A reasonable hope of going--a reasonable hope of going to a good place and an absolute certainty of leaving a bad one.' That's the sentiment--keep it in mind, my dear." She was nerving herself to new appeals, half fearing she could not hold his attention. She seized on that unprecedented look of compassion. "But, Randall, you'll let him off--let him off for me--for my sake." In her eagerness she rose and fluttered to the desk, standing before him. He whirled his chair about, and the look of commiseration had gone. "No, no, no! You can't understand, Nell. I couldn't let him off if I wanted to. It's fate, its retribution--the sins of the father--it's scriptural, I tell you--" His eyes were gleaming again with steely implacability. "But for me, Randall, for my sake, for me alone--not thinking of him?" "Ah, lady, set me a harder task, but one of dignity--as difficult, as dangerous as you like, so it has some dignity. But not that. Here"--he gracefully extended the handle of the dagger to her--"slay me an' you will--the blade is keen--a toy, but deadly--I'll die smiling if you wish. But don't ask for that cub's happiness. Don't rob me of my pay, Nell, my pay for all I've endured from him, his boastings and snivelings, and his detestable handshakes. Don't talk rot, I say, even if you must die." Again she set herself to plead, desperation feeding the fire in her head until she knew not her words. She was conscious only of a torrent of speech, coaxing, imploring, wheedling, even threatening. But all she evoked was the steady, smiling negative, his head shaken unwittingly to the rhythm of her phrases.