“She got to him first,” went on Merton, thoughtfully. “His knees were sagging just as I got to the window, and she was trying to hold him up in her arms. And then between us we laid him down, and I saw that the end was very near. There was nothing I could do; the knife was clean into his chest. The finish of the journey had come to the man who could not get drunk. And so I left them together, while I mounted guard by the window with a gun in each hand. It wasn’t a house to take risks in.
“He lived, I think, for five minutes, and of those five minutes I would rather not speak. There are things which a man may tell, and things which he may not. Sufficient be it to say that he may have cheated at cards or he may not—she loved him. If, indeed, he had committed the unforgivable sin amongst gentlemen all the world over, he atoned for it. And she loved him. Let us leave it at that.
“And when it was over, and the strange, bitter spirit of the man who called himself Jimmy Mainwaring had gone out on the unknown road, I touched her on the shoulder. She rose blindly and stumbled out into the darkness at my side. I don’t think I spoke a word to her, beyond telling her to take my arm. And after a while she grew heavier and heavier on it, until at last she slipped down—a little unconscious heap of sobbing girlhood.”
Merton paused and lit a cigarette with a smile.
“So that is how it was ordained that I should carry the Lady Sylvia Clavering, slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, for three miles. I remember staggering into the village to find myself surrounded by men from the yacht. I handed her over to her distracted husband, and then I rather think I fainted myself. I know I found myself in my own bar, with people pouring whisky down my throat. And after a while they cleared off, leaving Clavering alone with me. He began to stammer out his thanks, and I cut him short.
“‘No thanks are due to me,’ I said. ‘They’re due to another man whom you called a card-cheat—but who was a bigger man than either you or I are ever likely to be.’
“He stood there silently for a moment or two; then with a queer look on his face he took off his hat.
“‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘He was a bigger man than me.’”