But the _remedium_ had existed, the thing was still possible, the light burned, though distant, feeble, flickering.

He had told himself that he despaired; but he had not known what real despair was until this moment, until he sat, as he saw now, among the Dead Sea splendours of his parlour, the fingers of his right hand drumming on the arm of the abbot's chair, his shaggy eyelids drooping over his brooding eyes.
Ah, God! If he had stayed to take the stuff when it lay in his power! If he had refused to open until he held it in his hand! If, even after that act of folly, he had refused to go until she gave it him! How inconceivable his madness seemed now, his fear of scandal, his thought of others! Others?
There was one of whom he dared not think; for when he did his head began to tremble on his shoulders; and he had to clutch the arms of the chair to stay the palsy that shook him.

If _she_, the girl who had destroyed him, thought it was all one to him whom the drug advantaged, or who lived or who died, he would teach her--before he died! He would teach her! There was no extremity of pain or shame she should not taste, accursed witch, accursed thief, as she was! But he must not think of that, or of her, now; or he would die before his time.
He had a little time yet, if he were careful, if he were cool, if he were left a brief space to recover himself.

A little, a very little time! Whose were that foot and that voice?
Basterga's?
The Syndic's eyes gleamed, he raised his head.

There was another score he had to pay! His own score, not Baudichon's.