“Yes.” Tybalt had a new hope.
“T’sh! What do I want of five hundred dollars! But, here, answer me a question: Was the lady—his wife, she that was left in England—a good woman? Answer me out of your own sense, and from my story. If you say right you shall have a letter—one that I have by me.”
Tybalt’s heart leapt into his throat. After a little he said huskily: “She was a good woman—he believed her that, and so shall I.”
“You think he could not have been so great unless, eh? And that ‘Charles Rex,’ what of him?”
“What good can it do to call him bad now?” Without a word, Pierre drew from a leather wallet a letter, and, by the light of the fast-setting sun, Tybalt read it, then read it again, and yet again.
“Poor soul! poor lady!” he said. “Was ever such another letter written to any man? And it came too late; this, with the king’s recall, came too late!”
“So—so. He died out there where that wild duck flies—a Great Slave. Years after, the Company’s man brought word of all.”
Tybalt was looking at the name on the outside of the letter.
“How do they call that name?” asked Pierre. “It is like none I’ve seen—no.”
Tybalt shook his head sorrowfully, and did not answer.