And now, all at once, as she looked up at him, where he leant against the mantel, these vagabond memories of hers took point and shape. It was about these very men that he was talking.
“And think of it!” he was saying, impressively. “It's magnificent enough for me to make this great hit--but I don't count it as anything at all by comparison with the fact that I make it at their expense. You remember the fellows I told you about?” he asked abruptly, deferring to the confused look on her face.
“Yes--you make it out of them,” she repeated, in an uncertain voice. It occurred to her that she must have been almost asleep. “But did I miss anything? Have you been telling what it is that you have made?”
“No--that you shall have in good time. You don't seem to realize it, Louisa. I can hardly realize it myself. I am actually a very rich man. I can't tell how much I've got--in fact, it can be almost as much as I like--half a million pounds, I suppose, at the start, if I want to make it that much. Yes--it takes the breath away, doesn't it? But best of all--a thousand times best of all--practically every dollar of it comes out of those Kaffir swine--the very men that tried to rob me, and that have been trying to ruin me ever since. I tell you what I wish, Louise--I wish to God there could only be time enough, and I'd take it all in half-sovereigns--two millions of them, or three millions--and just untwist every coin, one by one, out from among their heart-strings. Oh--but it'll be all right as it is. It's enough to make a man feel religious--to think how those thieves are going to suffer.”
“Well” she said, slowly after reflection, “it all rather frightens me.”
As if the chill in the air of the cheerless room had suddenly accentuated itself, she arose, took a match-box from the mantel, and, stooping, lit the fire.
He looked down at the tall, black-clad figure, bent in stiff awkwardness over the smoking grate, and his eyes softened. Then he took fresh note of the room--the faded, threadbare carpet, the sparse old furniture that had seemed ugly to even his uninformed boyish taste, the dingy walls and begrimed low ceiling--all pathetic symbols of the bleak life to which she had been condemned.