Norma hesitated. I could see that the real crux of her story was at hand. "Yes?" said I, gently.
"Urged by my sister, I went to his hotel on the representation that he could and would do something to enable Howard to regain control and finally save his property—the result of his life's labors. You can understand how I wanted to help Howard. Mr. Ramund said the hotel parlor was too public, and asked me to his suite. Obsessed by such intense desire to save my husband, and having so little worldly knowledge, I indiscreetly went. After a little talk on the business matter, this man began to offer protestations of love for me, and told me, brazenly, how much more he could do for me than a bankrupt, discredited husband. Insulted, shocked, and stunned into sheer numbness, which he mistook for silent consent, he grasped me bodily, embraced me and kissed me violently before I could recover. Then the door opened and Howard entered—quiet, fierce, determined. It seems in retrospect a part of a play. With wonderfully polite self-control he, as though requesting an ordinary favor, asked me to please run on home.
"What happened after I left I never knew. Fearful of a great tragedy, and with a sense of injury and mortification, I walked all the way. I was actually afraid to go home. When I finally plucked up sufficient courage to do so, I found he had been there and taken little Jim. I have not heard of them since." It was some moments before she could quiet down, after her painful recital.
"The bank is running the plant now?" I asked, turning away from the subject she had voluntarily introduced. I was through with it. I could see the villainy and perfidy behind Ramund's action. I knew what I would have done were I in Howard Byng's place and I afterward learned that he did that very thing.
"Yes—but there is something wrong," she replied. "It does not prosper. My father's entire fortune went along with the crash. Mr. Potter returned to a bank clerkship where he was when he married sister. She blames me, attributing the disaster to my attitude toward Mr. Ramund, raved about my senseless scruples, and still resists all my attempts at reconciliation. She apparently loves only money. So, you see, I am quite alone. Do you—do you think of any possible way to find my husband and child?" she asked in whispered agony. "You know he took little Jim, then only a year old, because—because—he thought me unfit. I am terribly depressed at times for fear they may be dead. I would have found them if living. He may have done something terrible and had to go. I have tried every way within my meager means to find them. Do you think you can help me?" she implored, reaching out her hands toward me.
"I might, but I sail for Europe to-morrow. I am compelled to go." My words sounded brutal to my own ears after such an appeal.
"Isn't there—isn't there something you can suggest?"
I meditated for some minutes. Howard Byng, if not desperate enough to destroy himself and child, would go back to the pine woods of his birth, I reasoned. Finally I said, "I will give you a letter to a friend of mine in the Excise Department, who travels the turpentine country constantly. He might get trace of him. Howard would return there if living."
"That's so. I never thought of that before. As lowly as was his start in life, he never ceased loving the woods," she recalled, brightening. "How long will you be away?"
Knowing the disappointment the truth would bring to her, I answered ambiguously. "I hardly know. One never can tell, but I hope not very long. Meanwhile keep up a stout heart. Everything straightens out in time. Keep busy, don't brood, be brave." I will never forget how forlorn she looked as she bade me good-bye. If she had known I would be away for several years she would have broken down completely. She felt that I could help her.