Upcher was not particularly glad to see me, but he made the situation as little strained as possible. He did no violent protesting, no arraigning of law and justice. If he had, perhaps, acted according to the dictates of his hypothetical ancestress, he at least spoke calmly enough. He seemed to regard himself less as unjustly accused than as unjustly executed, if I may say so: he looked on himself as a dead man; his calamity was irretrievable. The dead may judge, but I fancy they don’t shriek. At all events, Upcher didn’t. A proof of his having cast hope carelessly over his shoulder was his way of speaking of his wife. He didn’t even take the trouble to use the present tense; to stress, as it were, her flesh-and-blood reality. It was “Rachel was,” never “Rachel is”--as we sometimes use the past tense to indicate that people have gone out of our lives by their own fault. The way in which he spoke of her was not tactful. A franker note of hatred I’ve never--except perhaps once--heard struck. Occasionally he would pull himself up, as if he remembered that the dead are our natural creditors for kindly speech. “She was a devil, and only a devil could live with her. But there’s no point in going into it now.” I rather wanted him to go into it: not--might Heaven forbid!--to confess, but to justify himself, to gild his stained image. I tried frankness. “I think I’ll tell you, Upcher, that I never liked her.” He nodded. “She was poison; and I am poisoned. That’s the whole thing.” I was silent for a moment. How much might it mean? “You read the evidence?” he broke out. “Well, it was bad--damned bad and dirty. I’d rather be hanged straight than hear it all again. But it’s the kind of thing you get dragged into sooner or later if you link yourself to a creature like that. I suppose I’m essentially vulgar, but I’m a better lot than she was--for all her looks.” “She had looks,” I admitted. “No one could touch her at her best. But she was an unspeakable cat.” It had been, all of it, about as much as I could stand, and I prepared to go. My time, in any case, was about up. I found it--in spite of the evidence--shockingly hard to say good-bye to Upcher. You know what farewells by a peaceful death-bed are; and you can imagine this. There was nothing to do but grip his hand. “Good-bye, Filippo.” “Good-bye, old man. I’ll see you--” The familiar phrase was extinguished on his lips. We stared at each other helplessly for an instant. Then the warder led me out.