“Yes,” he cried. “Surely. He believed every word I said. Didn’t he act—as if he believed it?”

Demon started pounding in the next room, pounding God knew what or why. He was supposed to be pulling up tacks, not driving them in. “Yes … He has been delirious most of the time. Though I feel that he—believed you.”

“Well,” Bale said.

“He’s my husband,” the woman whispered. “He’ll have only one limb. Don’t look at me like that.”

He told her, thickly: “If you only possessed sufficient courage—”

“Oh,” she sobbed, “you—to talk about our courage! Tyler has been twice wounded.”

“I suppose you feel that you committed— It was something wicked, you believe, for which God can never forgive you and which no one else—”

She said, “Of course I was wicked. I pray that he won’t die. I could never stand it if he did.”

“All right.” Desire you forever, whether my mind wishes it or not … astral voicelessness which is your spirit. He turned and found the door.

She said rapidly; “Don’t act—that way. Think—if you were up there in bed instead of— How would it be?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. He went out on the porch. “By the by,” he said, “Mr. Fanning’s colt—Dazzle—was left in Maryland. I shall write to the man, and send money, and have the colt brought to you. Elijah Huddlestone is dead,” he said, over his shoulder, and knew that he could never tell the rest to anyone. He walked down the steps and around the corner and toward his own house: its upstairs windows were pure gold. He looked back, once, and thought that he saw Irene watching him from the rear window of the upper hall, but he could never be sure whether it was she. There were a lot of other people in the house.

He said to himself, “What was that Chinaman’s name? Lucas Mite had a book—” Kept thinking how Elijah looked, on the two-wheeled cart. He went into the buttery and opened up the kitchen cupboard as well; he gathered all the food which would spoil, or which might attract vermin, and carried it out to the rear porch. Most of it was spoiled already. Some one would find it and carry it away. Mrs. Wurke had good, substantial relatives … must think of everything. He fastened all downstairs windows and shutters, and barred the back door.

In his room, he changed his shirt and put the few remaining clean clothes into the extension case. He didn’t take any books except Typee. He counted: he had six hundred and twenty-nine dollars in gold and greenbacks, in the money belt. He put fifty dollars in his pocket and left the rest in the belt.