“Ride where?”
“What does it matter where?”
“Why should you ride?”
“Because you ride fast with the devil.”
“What is the good of riding fast?”
“In the rush a man forget.”
“What does he forget, my friend?”
There was a pause, in which a man with a load of crime upon his soul dwelt upon the words my friend, coming from the lips of one who knew the fulness of his iniquity. Then he answered:
“In the noise he forget that a voice is calling in his ear, ‘You did It!’ He forget what he see in his dreams. He forget the hand that touch him on the arm when he walk in the woods alone, or lie down to sleep at night, no one near. He forget that some one wait—wait—wait, till he has suffer long enough, or till, one day, he think he is happy again, and the Thing he did is far off like a dream—to drag him out to the death he did not die. He forget that he is alone—all alone in the world, for ever and ever and ever.”
He suddenly sank upon the floor beside Charley, and a groan burst from his lips. “To have no friend—ah, it is so awful!” he said. “Never to see a face that look into yours, and know how bad are you, and doesn’t mind. For five years I have live like that. I cannot let any one be my friend because I was that! They seem to know—everything, everybody—what I am. The little children when I pass them run away to hide. I have wake in the night and cry out in fear, it is so lonely. I have hear voices round me in the woods, and I run and run and run from them, and not leave them behind. Three times I go to the jails in Quebec to see the prisoners behind the bars, and watch the pains on their faces, to understand what I escape. Five times have I go to the courts to listen to murderers tried, and watch them when the Jury say Guilty! and the Judge send them to death—that I might know. Twice have I go to see murderers hung. Once I was helper to the hangman, that I might hear and know what the man said, what he felt. When the arms were bound, I felt the straps on my own; when the cap come down, I gasp for breath; when the bolt is shot, I feel the wrench and the choke, and shudder go through myself—feel the world jerk out in the dark. When the body is bundled in the pit, I see myself lie still under the quick-lime with the red mark round my throat.”