I giggled again, more foolish than ever.
“No, I won’t,” I said. “And have you yet found Abel, Mr. Pilbrow?”
Now, in a wonderful way, my ingenuous question wrought a sudden transformation in the man. As once before, his hand swept the hard evil from his eyes, and when those looked at me again, they were as soft as a weary woman’s. The change was infinitely pathetic, illuminating; and in the light of it, I seemed to see for the first time how worn was this poor creature, how tired and woeful, and how, perhaps, he wore his outlawry for a mask.
“If I doubted before, could I doubt now!” he cried. “Staunch, and unspoiled by the years! And how could it be otherwise with his son!”
He had seized my hands in his; and, embarrassed as I was, his words moved me to a strange understanding.
“Mr. Pilbrow,” I cried, as I had cried those long years before, “he said you did not do it.”
He gazed at me rapturously a moment, then fell to urging me to walk with him.
“Come,” he cried. “I must move, or I shall be a woman. Ask me, ask me everything. This accident—this destiny—this heart-filling spring in the desert! No, I have not found Abel, my friend, my dear friend, though I have never ceased to seek him, like the spectral dog I am.”
I thought of the werewolf of Mr. Sant’s story. So damned, so abhorrent, so pitiful appeared this grey shadow moving at my side. He put his arm within mine, and hurried me up and down the desolate beach. The grinding of the sea seemed to hush itself, the drooping pall of sky to rise aloof from us. I was full of excitement and agitation, carried altogether without the oppression of the thoughts which had been vexing me.
“Ask,” he cried, feverishly pressing my arm. “Give me the chance to unburden my heart to my one true friend, I do believe, God help me, in all the world! I have not found Abel, Richard—ah! may I call you Richard?—I have not found Abel, though through these long years I have never ceased to hunt him—his shadow, some sound of his voice, some track of his footsteps.”