"Oh, he had to take that chance--the chance of her never knowing--or else create a scandal. And that would have been very hard on her and on his family. But there were straws she could easily clutch at--as I have clutched at them. The perfect order in which everything happened to be left--even the last notes he had made. His laboratory was a scientist's paradise, they tell me. And the will, made after she threw him over, leaving everything to her. Not a letter unanswered, all little bills paid, and little debts liquidated. He came as near suggesting it as he could, in decency. But I dare say she will never guess it." "Then what did it profit him?" "It didn't profit him, in your sense. He took a very long chance on her guessing. That wasn't what concerned him." "I hope she will never guess, anyhow. It would ruin her life, to no good end." "Oh, no." Havelock was firm. "I doubt if she would take it that way. If she grasped it at all, she'd believe he thought her right. And if he thought her right, of course he wouldn't want to live, would he? She would never think he killed himself simply for love of her." "Why not?" "Well, she wouldn't? She wouldn't be able to conceive of Ferguson's killing himself merely for that--with _his_ notions about survival." "As he did." "As he did--and didn't." "Ah, she'd scarcely refine on it as you are doing, Havelock. You're amazing." "Well, he certainly never expected her to know that he did it himself. If he had been the sort of weakling that dies because he can't have a particular woman, he'd have been also the sort of weakling that leaves a letter explaining." "What then did he die for? You'll have to explain to me. Not because he couldn't have her; not because he felt guilty. Why, then? You haven't left him a motive." "Oh, haven't I? The most beautiful motive in the whole world, my dear fellow. A motive that puts all your little simple motives in the shade." "Well, what?" "Don't you see? Why, I told you. He simply assumed, for all practical purposes, that she had been right. He gave himself the fate he knew she considered him to deserve. He preferred--loving her as he did--to do what she would have had him do. He knew she was wrong; but he knew also that she was made that way, that she would never be right. And he took her for what she was, and loved her as she was. His love--don't you see?--was too big. He couldn't revolt from her: she had the whole of him--except, perhaps, his excellent judgment. He couldn't drag about a life which she felt that way about. He destroyed it, as he would have destroyed anything she found loathsome. He was merely justifying himself to his love. He couldn't hope she would know. Nor, I believe, could he have lied to her. That is, he couldn't have admitted in words that she was right, when he felt her so absolutely wrong; but he could make that magnificent silent act of faith." Chantry still held out. "I don't believe he did it. I hold with the coroner."