"I thought," said Mr. Carmody, "that in the circumstances...."
"It would be best...."
"It would be best if...."
Words—and there should have been sixty-three more of them—failed Mr. Carmody. He pushed a slip of paper across the table and resumed his seat, a suffering man.
"I fail to...." began Colonel Wyvern. And then his eye fell on the slip of paper, and pomposity slipped from him like breath off a razor blade. "What—what——?" he said.
"Moral and intellectual damages," said John. "My uncle feels he owes it to you."
Silence fell upon the room. The Colonel had picked up the cheque and was scrutinizing it as if he had been a naturalist and it some rare specimen encountered in the course of his walks abroad. His eyebrows, disentangling themselves and moving apart, rose in an astonishment he made no attempt to conceal. He looked from the cheque to Mr. Carmody and back again.
"Good God!" said Colonel Wyvern.
With a sudden movement he tore the paper in two, burst into a crackling laugh and held his hand out.
"Good God!" he cried jovially. "Do you think I want money? All I ever wanted was for you to admit you were an old scoundrel and murderer, and you've done it. And if you knew how lonely it's been in this infernal place with no one to speak to or smoke a cigar with...."