“Not yet,” Herold replied, with a smile, for he saw that the instinct of friendship, at any rate, had not been consumed. “I 've walked on roses all my life. That 's why I 've never done anything great. But my hell is before me. How can I escape it?” The smile faded from his face, and he looked far away into the gray sky. “Sometimes my mother's Celtic nature seems to speak and prophesy within me. It tells me that my roses shall turn into red-hot ploughshares and my soul shall be on fire. The curtains of the future are opened for an elusive fraction of a second--” He broke off suddenly. “I'm talking rot, John. At least it's not all rot. I was only thinking that in my bad time I should have a great, strong friend to stand by my side.” “If you mean me,” said Risca, “you know I shall. But, in the meanwhile I pray to God to spare you a hell like mine. Sometimes I wonder,” he continued after a gloomy pause, “whether this would have happened if I had stuck by her. I could have seen which way things were tending, and I would have stepped in. After all, I am strong enough to have borne it.” “You were talking about murder just now,” said Herold. “If you had stayed with her, there would have been murder done or something precious near it.” Risca sighed. He was a big, burly man, with a heavy, intellectual face, prematurely furrowed, and a sigh shook his loose frame somewhat oddly. “I don't know,” said he, after a lumbering turn or so up and down the room. “How can any man know? She was impossible enough, but I never dreamed of such developments. And now that I reflect, I remember signs. Once we had a little dog--no, I have no right to tell you. Damn it! man,” he cried fiercely, “I have no right to keep you here in this revolting atmosphere.” He picked up Herold's hat. “Go away, Wallie, and leave me to myself. You 're good and kind and all that, but I 've no right to make your life a burden to you.”