"Well, he certainly never expected her to know that he did it himself. If he had been the sort of weakling that dies because he can't have a particular woman, he'd have been also the sort of weakling that leaves a letter explaining."
"What then did he die for? You'll have to explain to me. Not because he couldn't have her; not because he felt guilty. Why, then? You haven't left him a motive."
"Oh, haven't I? The most beautiful motive in the whole world, my dear fellow. A motive that puts all your little simple motives in the shade."
"Well, what?"
"Don't you see? Why, I told you. He simply assumed, for all practical purposes, that she had been right. He gave himself the fate he knew she considered him to deserve. He preferred—loving her as he did—to do what she would have had him do. He knew she was wrong; but he knew also that she was made that way, that she would never be right. And he took her for what she was, and loved her as she was. His love—don't you see?—was too big. He couldn't revolt from her: she had the whole of him—except, perhaps, his excellent judgment. He couldn't drag about a life which she felt that way about. He destroyed it, as he would have destroyed anything she found loathsome. He was merely justifying himself to his love. He couldn't hope she would know. Nor, I believe, could he have lied to her. That is, he couldn't have admitted in words that she was right, when he felt her so absolutely wrong; but he could make that magnificent silent act of faith."
Chantry still held out. "I don't believe he did it. I hold with the coroner."
"I don't. He came as near telling me as he could without making me an accessory before the fact. There were none of the loose ends that the most orderly man would leave if he died suddenly. Take my word for it, old man."
A long look passed between them. Each seemed to be trying to find out with his eyes something that words had not helped him to.
Finally Chantry protested once more. "But Ferguson couldn't love like that."
Havelock the Dane laid one hand on the arm of Chantry's chair and spoke sternly. "He not only could, but did. And there I am a better authority than you. Think what you please, but I will not have that fact challenged. Perhaps you could count up on your fingers the women who are loved like that; but, anyhow, she was. My second cousin once removed, damn her!" He ended with a vicious twang.