“I ’low he’ll do,” said my uncle, presently, as he set down his glass. “Ay, lad; he’ll do, if I knows a eye from a eye.”
“Do what?”
“Yield,” he answered.
“T’ what?”
“Temptation.”
“Uncle Nick,” I besought, “leave the man be!”
“What odds?” he answered, the shadow of gloom come upon his face. “I’m cleared for hell, anyhow.”
’Twas a thing beyond me, as many a word and wicked deed had been before. I was used to the 123 wretched puzzle––calloused and uncaring, since through all my life I still loved the man who fostered me, and held him in esteem. We fell silent together, as often happened when my uncle tippled himself drunk at night; and my mind coursed in free flight past the seeming peril in which my tutor slept, past the roar of wind and the clamor of the sea, beyond the woes of the fool who would be married, to the cabin of the Shining Light, where Judith sat serene in the midst of the order she had accomplished. I remembered the sunlight and the freshening breeze upon the hills, the chirp and gentle stirring of the day, the azure sea and the far-off, tender mist, the playful breakers, flinging spray into the yellow sunshine. I remembered the companionable presence of the maid, her slender hands, her tawny hair, her sun-browned cheeks and the creamy curve of her brow, the blue and flash and fathomless depths of her eyes. I remembered the sweet, moist touch of her lips: I remembered––in that period of musing, when my uncle, fallen disconsolate in his chair, sipped his rum––the kiss that she gave me in the cabin of the Shining Light.
“Dannie,” says my uncle, “what you thinkin’ about?”
I would not tell.