Brandon’s hoarse tones broke in: 

“I came, because, years ago, to see this sight, to see you lying there like a crushed worm, I would have sold my soul.  Wronged me?  Shall I tell you what you have done?  There was only one creature on earth I cared for; that was my sister.  All those years in India I had been fancying our meeting.  I came back, and found her dying; more than that, I found her love turned away from me.  You did all this.  I tell you, I never could get one of her old fond looks or words from her all the time she was dying.  She was only afraid of me.  By hell! you stood between us to the last.  Do you know that she dragged herself across the room at my knees—­mine, who never refused to indulge her in a whim before—­first to be allowed to see you, and then to make me swear not to attempt your life?”

He stopped, gnashing his teeth.

All Guy’s features, wan and worn by pain, were lighted up with a tenderness and joy inexpressible as he heard what his dead love had borne and done for him.  He would have hidden his face had he guessed how its expression would exasperate Cyril’s furious temper.

“D—­n you!” he howled out, like a madman, “do you dare to triumph?” and, tearing off his glove, he struck Livingstone on the cheek with it a sharp blow.

A great shudder swept through every fibre of the maimed giant’s frame, in which sensation lingered still; the blood surged up to his forehead and ebbed again instantly, leaving even the lips deathly white; he raised his hand quickly, but it was only to warn me back; for, mild and peaceable as I am, I leaped up then, as savage as Cain.  With that hand he caught Brandon’s wrist.  The latter stood with his eyes cast down, sullenly—­already, I am sure, horror at the act of foul cowardice into which his passion had driven him was creeping over him—­he did not try to disengage himself.  Had he done so, thrice his strength would not have set him free.

“I thank God, from my heart,” Guy said, very slowly and steadily, “that, if I meet your sister hereafter, I shall not shrink before her, for I believe all I promised her has been kept.  Listen! you would feel shame to your life’s end thinking that you had struck a helpless, dying cripple.  It is not so.  You don’t know what you risked.  You were within arm’s-length, and at close quarters I could be dangerous still.  Look.”

He took up a small silver cup that lay near, and crushed it flat between his fingers.

There was silence then; only Brandon’s breath was heard, drawn hard and irregularly, as if he was trying to throw off a weight from his chest.

Guy looked up at him, and said very gently, holding out his hand, “Once more, forgive me.”

Cyril answered in a thick, smothered voice,

“I will not take your hand.  I will never forgive you.  But I forgive Constance; for—­I understand her now.”

He turned on his heel, and left the room without another word, still with his head bent down, as if in thought.  I gazed after him till the door shut softly.  Then I looked round at Guy.  His head had fallen back, and the features looked so drawn and changed that I cried out, thinking he was dead.  It was only a long, long swoon.