“Anyhow, you came, and I saw you and talked to you. I’ve come across many men in my life, doctor, and I make up my mind about them quickly now. If Hilda had died I should still have been quite sure that you had done your very best for her, and would have seen to it that the King took the same view. But you saved her. Now I’ll tell you something else; if Hilda had not fallen ill, and we had disregarded the King’s warning and taken you aboard the Snowflake—well, I don’t know what you would have done.”
“Don’t know myself,” said Pryce.
“But I do know that Hilda and I would have been safe. You would not have carried out your intentions.”
“Possibly not.”
“And for telling me of those intentions, which you were not bound to do, I respect you the more. You may have meant to be my enemy, but you have been indeed my friend. And that brings me to what I wanted to say. You’ve done more for me than I can say. Now then, what will you let me do for you? Out of friendship tell me. I set no limit.”
“You’re a good man, Lechworthy,” said Pryce, “and you set no limit. But though I’m not a good man, I do. I accept your friendship gladly and I’m proud to have it, but we’d better let the rest go.”
“Well,” said Lechworthy, “I had an idea, but it’s rather difficult to tell about it because I don’t want to put impertinent questions to you. You might fairly tell me that your private history is no concern of mine.”
“Yes,” said Pryce, “up at the club it is not etiquette to speak about what happened before we came here. The chaps there have never shown any curiosity as to my story, and they have never been told it. I think I know what they imagine—something quite unspeakable and having, as it happens, no basis in fact. It has never mattered to me. They don’t care, and I don’t. And what was your idea?”
“I want to take you back to England with us. I believe in you, and I can’t bear to see you wasting your life here. I don’t know what you’ve done, but I can’t believe it is anything which can’t be cleared up and put right. Anything that my influence and persistent exertions could do for you would be done. Now, is there any reason against it?”
“As I said before, you’re a good man, Lechworthy. But, unfortunately, there is every reason against it. It would be quite impossible. Look here, I’ll tell you the story. There was a woman who had been married for ten years. They had been for her ten years of hell—a peculiar and special hell that you know nothing about. And then her husband fell ill, and I attended him. He was rather loathsome, but I did what I could for him and he began to recover. One day I was called to the house and was told that he was dead; I went up, satisfied myself as to the cause of death, and said nothing. I never told the woman that I knew what she had done, let her believe that I was deceived, and gave a certificate that the man had died from his illness. You see, she was a good woman by nature, but had been driven near to madness by ten years of—well, only a doctor could appreciate it. I was a very young man, and I was heartily sorry for her; her husband was better dead anyway. Three months later this woman, being a woman, broke down and confessed everything. Exhumation and discovery followed—arsenic was a stupid thing to have used. There was my ruin ready-made.”