They drew their chairs to the hearth and sat, each with his cup in his hand, even as in times bygone, with their tin mugs before the camp fire at dawn. In spite of the sense of that hushed room above and the suspense of its brooding over them, Bethune had not felt so warm in his heart these many years.
"Man!" he exclaimed suddenly, reverting unconsciously to the Scotch idiom of his youth, "why in the name of Heaven did you do it?"
Harry English, staring at the red coals, answered nothing for a while. Not that he had failed to understand the train of thought that ended in the vague-seeming, yet comprehensive question—but that the answer was difficult if not painful.
"You see," he said slowly, at last, without shifting his abstracted gaze, "there was so much to find out and so much to consider...."
"To find out?"
"I had to be sure."
Bethune laid his cup on the hob and leaned over towards his friend, his fingers lightly touching the arm of the other's chair. After a while: "I think I understand," he said, knitting his rugged brows.
English gave him a fleeting smile of peculiar sadness.
"When one has been dead eight years, it is wiser, before coming to life again, to make sure that one's resurrection will be a benefit."
Bethune fell back into his place, with a grey shade about the lips. English dropped his eyes and there came silence between them. After a pause, he began to mend the fire from the scuttle; and, placing the lumps of coals one by one, he spoke again: