He was silent.
'All you'll do will be to agonise your father, your relations and friends. And me. You'll pay, you say. But what about us?'
His lips moved but I heard no word.
'If it did any good,' she went on, 'we'd—I'd be glad, proud to suffer for you. But all for nothing! For an idea!'
Archie shrugged his shoulders. 'Don't some people say ideas are everything?' he asked me.
They had begun to dance in the village. Hand-clapping strengthened the beat of the drum and the shrill monotonous voices of women singing, as they jogged to the rhythm.
'You were provoked, you were ill with fever,' Norah began.
'I haven't told you all,' Archie interrupted. 'Have you thought what life now holds for me?'
Without expiation he could never again have peace of mind. He must be ready at any moment to lie to his friends. At any moment a sincere word might be his ruin. Never would he feel clean. And as, to one of his nature, long duplicity was intolerable, he would have to live alone to escape. Alone, what memories would haunt him! What escape would there be from the vision of the defenceless man he had murdered.
The dance had come to an end and the singing ceased. I looked at Norah feeling she was beaten and was surprised to see her poise herself as if to deliver a blow.