"I suppose you feel in your heart that it is a great injustice, that your noble-minded murderer should go to a shameful death, whilst a leprous but respectable member of society like myself walks free through that gate!"
"I would wish no man this morning's agony," said the other.
"Suppose you were God—"
"Ronnie, have you no decency!"
"Ob, yes—but suppose you were: would you transfer the soul and the individuality of us two, Ambrose Sault and Ronnie Morelle?"
"God forgive me, I would, for you are altogether beastly!"
Ronnie laughed again.
There was the sound of a slamming door and a man came into the yard, squat, unshaven, a little nervous. A derby hat was on the back of his head, and in his hands, clasped behind him, was a leathern strap.
"There's the hangman," said Ronnie. "Ask him what he thinks of murderers' souls! What is death, Sir John? Look at those tablets on the wall—just a few initials. Yet they sleep as soundly as the great in the Abbey under their splendid monuments. Though they were hanged by the neck until they were dead. You would like God to change us. One of those changes which Merville talked about the other night—it was a pity you weren't there."
Sir John said nothing: he walked to the grille and a warder unlocked the steel door. For a second he stood and then, as the hangman went into the hall, he passed out through the opened gate.