I should hate myself to my dying day if I did." He rose abruptly as if half ashamed of his outburst and crossing to his bureau lighted another cheroot.
"Then what do you want me to do with it ?" asked Thresk.
"I want you to take it away." Ballantyne was taking a casuistical way of satisfying his conscience, and he was aware of it.

He would not destroy the portrait--no! But he wouldn't keep it either.

"You are going straight back to England," he said.

"Take it with you.

When you get home you can hand it to one of the big-wigs at the India Office, and he'll put it in a pigeon-hole, and some day an old charwoman cleaning the office will find it, and she'll take it home to her grandchildren to play with and one of them'll drop it on the fire, and there'll be an end of it." "Yes," replied Thresk slowly.