And now those beads. I’m sorry, but I’m also innocent. I have learned that Morrissy really double-crossed us all. He had had a copy made in Venice. The beads you have are forgeries. So the sixty thousand offered by the French Government remains uncalled for. Who has the originals I can’t say. I’m sorry. Morrissy’s game was risky. His idea was to make a sudden breakaway with the beads—lose them 286 in the gutter—and trust to luck that we would just miss killing him, which was the case.
Leaving to-night. Bought a sloop down there, and I’m going back there to live. Tired of human beings. Tired of myself. Still, there’s the chart. Mull it over. Maybe it’s an invitation. The lagoon is like turquoise and the land like emerald and the sky a benediction.
A spell of silence and immobility. Not a word about his battle with Flint, thought Jane. A little shiver ran over her. But what a queer, whimsical madman! To have planned it all so that he could experience a thrill! The tragic beauty of his face and the pitiable, sluing, lurching stride! She sighed audibly, so did the two men.
“Denny, I don’t know,” said Cleigh.
“I do!” said Dennison, anticipating his father’s thought. “He’s a man, and some day I’d like to clasp his hand.”
“Maybe we all shall,” said Cleigh. “But open the box, Jane, and let’s see.”
Between the layers of cotton wool she found a single pearl as large as a hazelnut, pink as the Oriental dawn. One side was slightly depressed, as though some mischievous, inquisitive mermaid had touched it in passing.
“Oh, the lovely thing!” she gasped. “The lovely thing! But, Denny, I can’t accept it!”
“And how are you going to refuse it? Keep it. 287 It is an emblem of what you are, honey. The poor devil!”