"Believe me," Lanyard began in some constraint, "I am not insensible—"
"No! say nothing now. When you have heard me out it shall be for you to say then whether or not I deserve better than mockery from you. But I prophesy you will end by forgetting the fine promise you have just now made . . ."
Impressed against his bias, Lanyard gave a nod and nothing more; and then, seeing that she still faltered as if distressed by his direct attention, he crossed to the port and stood with his lean, worn face ruddled by the sun's last rays.
It was going down in a flaming welter of rose and gold beyond a violet smudge to starboard, a blind loom of land at a distance difficult to guess, because of the glare, though its relative nearness was manifest in the moderate sea that was running in its lee, all that was left to tell of that morning's fury; for while Lanyard looked, a small schooner swam astern, midway between the steamer and that dim shore, with slatting sails all black against the glare that burned the waters . . .
"Proceed, then," Lanyard prompted at length, watching the sun dip and vanish.
The woman's voice responded in a weary key from out the shadow at his elbow: "First of all, you must know you were mistaken about Mallison. He was a wretch, I don't dispute, capable of any infamy you please; but it was not he who made away with Folly's emeralds."
"You say that, no doubt, because he contrived to establish some sort of an alibi that resulted in his acquittal."
"He was never tried, he was granted liberty under bail and disappeared."
"And you reckon that proof of his innocence? Or is one to understand you absolve the fellow on Morphew's say-so?"
"But on your own, Michael."