Yes, that was a long time ago. And they were a long way off—his people and his land. Why had he allowed John McCloud to drive him away from his people and his land? Could he have foreseen this never would he have come, never would he have had the courage to put aside that which was within his grasp. It was a dark, desperate moment. He regretted his lost happiness; he regretted that he had not sinned. What were these abstract things which people called "good" and "right"? Where did they lead one? Malicious shadows! What was his reward? For the rest of his life he was to be the custodian of a rancorous mad woman. His only release was death, his death or hers, and these neurasthenics live forever. His own? The only thing to his credit at this moment was that he pushed aside the thought of self-destruction. He was down in the ring, only semi-conscious, and he heard the referee counting the fatal seconds, but he had the instinct of the fighter and he knew that before ten was called he would try to get up. His land and his people! They were calling to him, in many voices, many ways. Never had they called to him as now. And it was too late. All that was past. Wah-na-gi called to him. Oh, she called to him. Again he saw her as he looked back to get a last glimpse of the Red Butte Ranch, standing outlined against the eternal sky, standing on the eternal rock that marked the lonely grave. How simple and elemental she seemed to him sitting in the roar and smash of this huge factory where they were turning out lives by machinery! She called to him, to all that was best in him. Her soul, how clear and clean it was, like a mountain stream. Yes, he was glad he had not soiled it. Yes, he must live up to her faith in him. Perhaps there was another life, another world, where all these crooked things were made straight. He took paper and pen and wrote briefly and simply:
WAH-NA-GI:
I cannot come back. Don't wait for me. Don't expect me. I can't ask you to forget me, because I love you, never so much as now when I am saying good-by. HAL.
He could only see dimly the address as he wrote it. Then he held it before him and whispered: "'I hear the pulse of her secret soul!'"
"I beg your lordship's pardon——"
"Lordship? Lordship?" Who was that? And who was speaking? He was out in the shadow of the Moquitch. Ah, no, he was in London, in his father's house.
"Come in, Andrews; what is it?"
It was his father's butler, a slender little old man, with a deferential face and a refined cultivated voice like the gentle-folk with whom he had always lived. Even Andrews felt that there was something unusual in the air.
"I hope I'm not intruding on your lordship."
"Not at all, Andrews."