"A man is no man unless he does what he thinks is his duty, Max. I have tried to do mine. You would have done yours."
Ramon Garcia, standing a little apart, came softly forward.
"You die, señor?" he asked very gently.
The old man nodded while David Drennen looked up angrily at the interruption.
"You love your son?" Garcia asked, still very gently. "This Drennen is your son and you love him much?"
"Yes."
"Then I, Ramon Garcia, who have never done a good thing in my life, I do a good thing now! I give you something filled with sweetness to carry in your heart? For why?" He shrugged gracefully. "It is so short to tell, and maybe the telling make others happy, too. See. It is like this: Your son love the señorita de Bellaire. She love him. Bueno. I, too, love her. I cannot make her happy and love me; so I will make her happy anyway. And you happy while you die, señor. And your son happy always."
They all looked at him wonderingly. He paused a moment, gathered what he had to say into as few words as might be and went on calmly.
"Señor David promise Miss Ygerne he stake Lemarc. He give Lemarc ten thousand dollars. Lemarc come back and say to the lady: 'He lie. He give me nothing. He say he give the money and more to the lady when she give herself to him … for a little while.' But the lady who had believe many lies will not believe this one. What then, amigos? Then Ramon Garcia, loving the lady for his own, tell Sefton and Lemarc what they shall do. He say Ernestine Dumont shall play sick; she shall say she die and that George hit her; she shall make Señor David take her in his arms, maybe. And we take the Señorita de Bellaire to see!"
A gasp broke from Ygerne; a look that no man might read sweeping into her eyes. Drennen knelt still, looking stunned. A look of great happiness came into the old man's face.