There came back to him—and he sprang up and ground his teeth, pacing the floor as he remembered it—a night when she had wandered out alone in the starlight, and at last he had followed her and found her—though she did not know he was near—standing where the roof of pine-trees made a darkness, and as he stood within four feet of her he had heard her cry to the desolate stillness:
“If I could see you once! If I could see you once—if I could touch you—if I could hear you speak—just once—just once!”
And she had wailed it low—but as a starving child might cry for bread. And he had turned and gone away, sick of soul, leaving her.
He had told this to Baird, and had seen the muscles of his face twitch and his eyes suddenly fill with tears. He had left his seat and crossed the room to conceal his emotion, and Latimer had known that he did not speak because he could not.
The letters were written with caution, Stamps had said, and the mention of names had been avoided in them; and, though he ground his teeth again as he thought of this, he realised that the knowledge brought by a name would be of no value to him. Long ago he had said to big Tom in the cabin on the hillside: “If ever we meet face to face knowing each other, I swear I will not spare him.” Spare him? Spare him what? What vengeance could he work which would wipe out one hour of that past woe? None. He had grown sick to death in dwelling with the memories he could not bury. He had been born cursed by the temperament which cannot outlive. There are such. And it was the temperament to which vengeance brings no relief. No; if they two met face to face, what words could be said—what deeds could be done? His forehead and hands grew damp with cold sweat as he confronted the despair of it.
“Better that I should not know his name,” he cried. “Better that we should never meet. Pray God that he is dead; pray God the earth does not hold him.”
The man who had followed him had plainly but one purpose, which was the obtaining of money. He looked as if he needed it directly. He would go to him and pay him what he asked and get the papers. They must be in no other hands than his own. When he had them, Baird and himself would destroy them together, and that would be the end.
He encountered no difficulties when he went in search of the address Stamps had given him. The room he had directed him to was over a small store on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue. When he entered it he saw at once that the man whose circumstances reduced him to living in it must be one whose need of money was great indeed. It was entirely unfurnished, except for a mattress lying on the floor, and Stamps was stretched upon it, coughing and feverish.
“Come in,” he said. “I knowed ye’d be here purty soon. Thar ain’t no chair to ax ye to set down in.”
“I do not want to sit,” said Latimer. “You are ill. You caught cold last night.”