‘From the bottom of my heart,’ said I earnestly; and we pressed one another’s hands. Mouraki passed on to the stairs and began to mount them slowly. He turned his head over his shoulders and said:
‘How will you settle with Miss Hipgrave?’
‘I must beg her forgiveness, as I must yours,’ said I.
‘I hope you’ll be equally successful,’ said he, and his smile was in working order by now. It was the last I saw of him as he disappeared up the stairs.
‘Now,’ said I, sitting down, ‘he’s gone to think how he can get my throat cut without a scandal.’
In fact, Mouraki and I were beginning to understand one another.
[CHAPTER XV]
A STRANGE ESCAPE
Yes, Mouraki was dangerous, very dangerous: now that he had regained his self-control, most dangerous. His designs against me would be limited only by the bounds which I had taken the opportunity of recalling to his mind. I was a known man. I could not disappear without excuse. But the fever of the island might be at the disposal of the Governor no less than of Constantine Stefanopoulos. I must avoid the infection. I congratulated myself that the best antidote I had yet found—a revolver and cartridges—was again in my possession. These, and open eyes, were the treatment for the sudden fatal disease that threatened inconvenient lives in Neopalia.