"
Marie raised her shoulders with her pathetic gesture of resignation.
"The sleeping sickness," she said, "what will you? There is no
remedy. He always said he would die of that. He feared it."
In the greater sorrow she seemed to have forgotten her child, who
was staring open-eyed at the ceiling. The two others--the boy and
girl--were playing on the doorstep with some unconsidered trifles
from the dust-heap--after the manner of children all the world over.
"He was not a good man," said Marie, turning to Jocelyn, as if she
alone of all present would understand. "He was not a good husband,
but--" she shrugged her shoulders with one of her patient, shadowy
smiles--"it makes so little difference--yes?"
Jocelyn said nothing. None of them had aught to say to her. For
each in that room could lay a separate sin at Victor Durnovo's door.
He was gone beyond the reach of human justice to the Higher Court
where the Extenuating Circumstance is fully understood. The
generosity of that silence was infectious, and they told her
nothing. Had they spoken she would perforce have believed them; but
then, as she herself said, it would have made "so little
difference." So Victor Durnovo leaves these pages, and all we can
do is to remember the writing on the ground. Who amongst us dares
to withhold the Extenuating Circumstance? Who is ready to leave
this world without that crutch to lean upon? Given a mixed blood--
evil black with evil white and what can the result be but evil?
Given the climate of Western Africa and the mental irritation
thereof, added to a lack of education and the natural vice inherent
in man, and you have--Victor Durnovo.
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