"Yes—yes," said Howard, taking his pipe down and looking out of the cabin door reflectively, "don't you think I have made some progress to be able to even talk about it now without becoming insane? I am trying to tell you of a snake that has crawled across my path twice to destroy me. You know that don't happen often. I should have killed him the first time. I would have done it had it not been for one thing. I can think of it now—but I never dared to before. I couldn't tell anyone but you, even now! You seem to support me."
He stopped, puzzled by the expression on my face as the details of my meeting with Norma Byng, his wife, years before, rushed through my mind, and the dreadful sadness with which she told me of the same occurrence. Her simple story impressed me with added force after the lapse of time. By gesture I asked him to proceed. The fact was I could see valuable evidence for the Government, too, in the circumstances.
"As I said before," he continued slowly, "I had an opportunity and would have killed him, if he had not been secretly encouraged. I can see now I was all but insane when they not only took our properties, confiscating even my private account, leaving me without a cent, but I had to sell my household effects to live. Then Mrs. Potter started on another diabolical course. She deliberately undertook to sell my beautiful wife to the Prussian—and was making headway before I noticed it. It took me a long time to realize it and I was sure of it before I acted. I went down to Georgia to get old Don, the only man I ever entrusted with the full details of how the turpentine and rosin could be taken from a stump, bringing him back to New York with me.
"Their scheming, now in full swing, was working well. One day I was told that my wife had gone to Ramund's apartment. Desperate, I went there, intending to break in the door, but that was not necessary. In his cocksureness and insolent bravado he had not locked it and I entered. I heard him tell her how much more he could do for her than a bankrupt, discredited husband who could be easily removed. No protests came from my wife. Her silence was consent enough. I was as cool as I would be hunting for bob-cats. He took her in his arms, kissing her passionately. She did not resist and that was all that saved his life. I told her to go home, showed her out and locked the door." Byng buried his face in his hands for a moment, so I waited silently, until he began again.
He took her into his arms, kissing her passionately.
"He was a full match for me physically," said he, wearily, "but my sense of injury was so burningly intense that every muscle was as though laminated with steel wire. I felt a strength that knew no bounds. Fear and prudence had departed in the presence of this home wrecker. Almost my first blow knocked him senseless, but such a punishment, even if I had killed him, seemed mean, small, dreadfully inadequate. Instantly it occurred to me that undesirables should be unable to reproduce their species. Desperately, perhaps insanely, I used skill acquired in the pine woods. In a sense I was protecting little Jim and performing a service toward the world." He looked at me appealingly, but went on with his story.
"I went home immediately," said he, "but my wife was not there. Deciding she was unfit to further care for little Jim, I gathered a few things for the use of both of us, took my child and left within an hour.
"Though desperate and irrational, a part of my mind worked with method. The first schooner I ever had, the Canby, was considered too small and worthless to be put in the mortgage. But for old time's sake I had kept her anchored in a safe place and well looked after. I got old Don, took the Canby and started somewhere, I did not care a damn where, except I wanted to get away."
"You came south, of course," I ventured for the sake of saying something.