Impulsively I stretched out my hand and laid it on his arm, as if to calm him. But he shook it off impatiently.
"All that's passed," he cried. "Two thousand hours of hell can change a man. They've changed me. I can see things now, and mean to see more. That's why I've come on this business. That and——" his voice fell and his head drooped, and with his lazy laugh he murmured—"What a fool I am, just because a girl——" The sentence was left unfinished, and his fingers stole to the pocket as if in search of the drug.
"I must smoke or have it. Not 'her sake' nor a million 'her sakes' will keep me from it if I don't. I shall stop the carriage and get it."
He lit a cigar and held the match up, and peered closely at me until the little flame flickered out. Then he leaned back and puffed fiercely, filling the carriage with the smoke, and making me cough. At that, he let down the window on his side sharply and bent forward that the air might blow on his face.
By the light of the street lamps I saw that his face was drawn and lined as if with the pain and passion of the struggle through which he had passed.
"Have we far to go?" he asked, raising his voice in consequence of the noise from the open window. I did not answer, and he shrugged his shoulders. "You're a cheerful companion for a man in my mood," he cried, almost contemptuously, as he closed the window with a shiver of cold.
He leant back in his seat, drew his coat closely about him, and smoked in silence, but with less vehemence. Presently he found the silence oppressive.
"One of us must talk," he said then. "I wonder why I'm here and what the devil will come of it!" he exclaimed, laughing.
I wondered, too, what would come of it; but I held my tongue. I had resolved not to speak during the whole ride if I could avoid it, so as not to reveal myself. And if I could reach the house without his discovering my deception, I saw a way by which I could mislead him.
"What are you wrapped up like that for? Throw your cloak back," he said next, and put out his hand as if to do it. I drew it closer round me. "Then you're not deaf as well as dumb," he laughed. "What's the matter with you? I can find a way to make you speak, I think—or you've been just play-acting ever since I knew you."