“I too was to blame. And I see not that night for other nights, — for other nights and days, Diccon.”

He smiled, but there was still in his face a shadowy eagerness. “You said you would never strike me again,” he went on, “and that I was man of yours no more forever — and you gave me my freedom in the paper which I tore.” He spoke in gasps, with his eyes upon mine. “I’ll be gone in a few minutes now. If I might go as your man still, and could tell the Lord Jesus Christ that my master on earth forgave, and took back, it would be a hand in the dark. I have spent my life in gathering darkness for myself at the last.”

I bent lower over him, and took his hand in mine. “Diccon, my man,” I said.