"And what then?" I cried. "Would the world shiver if I died? Would even a tavern-keeper draw down his blinds? Perhaps some drunkard in his cups would wish I lived, that he might take my measure in a drinking-bout. There's my epitaph for you! Good Lord, Clutterbuck, but I would dearly love to die a clean death! There's that boy Parmiter tramping down his road. He does a far better thing than I have ever done. You know! Why talk of it? You know the life I have lived, and since that boy flung his example in my eyes, upon my word I sicken to think of it. Twelve years ago, Clutterbuck, I came to London, a cadet with a cadet's poor portion, but what a wealth of dreams! A fortune first, if I slaved till I was forty, and then I would set free my soul and live! The fortune came, and I slaved but six years for it. The treaty of Aix and a rise of stocks, and there was my fortune. You know how I have lived since." Clutterbuck looked at me curiously. I had never said so much to him or to any man in this strain. Nor should I have said so much now, but I was fairly shaken out of my discretion. For a little Clutterbuck sat silent and motionless. Then he said gently: "Shall I tell you why I will not go? Yes, I will tell you," and he told me the history of that Sunday, two years ago, when Cullen Mayle sat in the stocks, or at least as much of it as had come within his knowledge. The events of that day were the beginning of all the trouble, indeed, but Lieutenant Clutterbuck never knew more of it than what concerned himself, and as I sat over against him on that July morning and listened to his story while the world awoke, I had no suspicion of what the passage of that Sunday hid, or of the extraordinary consequences which it brought about. CHAPTER IV DESCRIBES THE REMARKABLE MANNER IN WHICH CULLEN MAYLE LEFT TRESCO "It was my business," he began, "to fetch Cullen Mayle from Tresco over to St. Mary's where the stocks were set. It was an unpleasant business, and to me doubly and damnably unpleasant." "I understand!" said I, thinking of how he had before spoken to me of Adam Mayle's adopted daughter. "I took a file of Musquets, found the three of them at breakfast, and, with as much delicacy as I could, explained my errand. Helen alone showed any distress or consciousness of disgrace. Cullen strolled to the window, and seeing that I had placed my men securely about the house and that my boat was ready on the sand not a dozen yards away, professed himself, with an inimitable indifference, willing to gratify my wishes; while Adam, so far from manifesting any anger, broke out into a great roar of laughter.