Mac stopped and leaned toward the fire, his head in his hands, the fingers covering the eyes. Not once during the long narrative had he looked at me. He had been speaking like one in a trance, or as one speaks to himself when alone. That I had been present was of no consequence; I was no more than the portraits and studies on the walls, not so much as the andirons and the fire. That I had listened in complete silence was what pleased him. This, I think, is one reason why he so often unburdens his heart to me.
Mac straightened his back, rose to his feet and took a turn around the room, restlessly, as if the tale had stirred other memories which he was trying to banish; then he dropped again into his chair.
"That's what I mean by the other side of the brick wall, old man. Makes your blood boil, doesn't it? Did mine."
"And the girl in the chair never knew?"
"No, and never will. He did; he looked back as he mounted the silver steps, and pointed her out to the angel helping him up the ladder. God knew what he had suffered, and wiped out whatever there was against him."
There was a tone now in Mac's voice that thrilled me. For a moment I did not trust myself to speak.
"And about the letter—did you read it?"
"Yes; it was from his wife. The Doctor gave it to me, and I hunted her up. Little place outside of London where they make bricks. Only two rooms; in one a half-starved daughter, white as chalk. She had sent for him, the wife said. Same old story—told a hundred times a day, if you will but listen with your ears to some wall. The steerage out to New York; the landing in a strange city; the weary, hungry hunt for work; money gone, clothes gone, strength gone—then the inevitable. This one had made one last effort, even to giving his body to be burned. The white-faced daughter wanted to know, of course, all about it—they all want to know; but I didn't tell her—I lied! I said he had had heart failure, and that they had buried him at sea, and in a coffin like any other passenger, because we were only three days out; and I described the service and the roses, and how sorry the passengers were. She knows the truth now. He's told her.
"Go get your rose, old man. I ought to have had better sense than to rake it all up. No use in it. Not your side of the wall, not my side. Let me smell it. Yes, same perfume. Here, put it back in your button-hole."