So he took refuge in bluster, made himself out worse than he was, and in so doing distorted Lucy. James was in torment, remembering what he must. He felt her arms close about his neck; he felt the rush of her words: "And oh, darling, I thought it was you—of course I thought so—and I was proud and happy—that you should like me so much! I looked at myself in the glass afterwards. I thought, 'You must be rather pretty.' ..." Oh, Heaven, and this mocking, dying devil, with his triumphs!
"Say no more, man, say no more," broke from him. "I understand the rest. I have nothing to say to you. You did badly—you did me a wrong—and her too. But it's done with, and she (God bless her!) can take no harm. How can she? She acted throughout with a pure mind. She thought that you were me, and when she found that you weren't—well, well, take your pride in that. I give it up to you. Why shouldn't I? She gave you her innocent heart. I don't grudge you."
"You needn't," said Urquhart, "since I'm a dead man. But if I had been a living one, who knows—?" He laughed bitterly, and stung the other.
"You forget one thing," said James, with something of his old frozen calm. "For all that you knew, ten minutes after you had left my house that day—the first of them—I might have benefited by your act—and you been none the wiser, nor I any the worse off. And there would have been an end of it."
Urquhart considered the point. James could have seen it working in his poor, wicked, silly mind, but kept his face away.
"Yes," Urquhart said, "you might; but you didn't." Then he laughed again—not a pleasant sound.
"Man," said James indignant, "don't you see? What robs me of utterance is that I have benefited by what you have done."
"It's more than you have deserved, in my opinion," Urquhart retorted. "I'll ask you not to forget that she has loved me, and doesn't blame me. And I'll ask you not to forget that it is I who am telling you all this, and not she." It was his last bite.
The retort was easy, and would have crushed him; but James did not make it. Let him have his pitiful triumph. He was not angry any more; he couldn't be—and there was Lucy to be thought of. What would Urquhart think of a Lucy who could have revealed such things as these? He would have judged her brazen, little knowing the warm passion of her tears. Ah, not for him these holy moments. No, let him die thinking honour of her—honour according to his own code. He put his hand out and touched Urquhart's face with the back of it.
"Let us leave it at this," he said; "we both love her. We are neither of us fit. She would have taken either of us. But I came first, and then came Lancelot—and she loves the law. Put it no other way."