"Yes; that is how many have been tempted."
"And I say we cannot blame them. No man with a spark of humanity within his breast could give blame. Answer for yourself, Kyne: were it possible that such a proposal could be made to you in these days, would you not fall in with it?"
"No," said the officer, in a low but decisive tone "I should not."
"No?" repeated Mr. Thornycroft, staring at him.
"It killed my father."
Mr. Thornycroft did not understand. The supervisor, looking straight before him as if he were seeing past events in the distance, explained, in a voice that was no louder than a whisper.
"He was tempted exactly as you have described; and yielded. When the exposures took place at the London Customs, he was one of the officers implicated, and made his escape abroad. There he died, yearning for the land to which he could not return. The French doctors said that unsatisfied yearning killed him; he had no other discoverable malady."
"What a curious thing!" exclaimed Mr. Thornycroft.
"There were some private, unhappy circumstances mixed with it. One was, that his wife would not share in his exile. I could not; I had already a place in the Customs. Just before he died I went over, and he extorted a solemn promise from me never to do as he had done. I never shall. No inducement possible to be offered would tempt me."
"It is a complete answer to the supposititious case propounded," said the justice, laughing pleasantly.