"Poor little devil," he murmured taking the lamp and going back into his bedroom.
The window of this room he closed carefully, and set the lamp upon the rude desk. He drew the pistol from the drawer, and laid it conveniently at hand, then he turned to the chest with the mighty lock and, having unfastened it, drew forth a small package and went back to the chair before the desk.
The package contained a photograph and some letters. The letters were tied together, and these the man placed beside the pistol. The photograph he took from its various wrappings of tissue paper and braced it against the lamp.
The big clock hanging over the window frame struck one. The heat in the little room became stifling, and the lamp flickered in its duty—for the oil was running low.
With arms folded before him Gaston gazed upon the pictured face. It broke upon the senses like a revelation of womanhood. At the first glance it seemed as if just that type had never been conceived before. The artist had grasped that conception evidently, for with no shading or background, with only a filmy scarf outlining the form from the colourless paper, the compelling features started vividly upon the vision, as the individuality of the girl did upon the imagination. An irritation followed the first impression. Was this child, or woman? What was she to become, or what had she become already? Was she a soul reaching out for realization, or a well-developed personality, having gained, with all its other attainments, a power of self-concealment from the inquisitive eye?
The brow, low and broad, bespoke gracious womanhood and a possible radiant maternity, rather than intellectuality. The masses of hair were braided and wound coronet-style about the small uplifted head. The eyes, deep, dark, and mystical gave no clue to the inner woman; but the mouth, while it was tender in its curves, had a rigidity of purpose in its expression that fixed the attention. A pretty, rounded chin, a slender, slightly tilted nose, an exquisite throat set off by the cloud of lace—such was the face that Gaston beheld, and presently it wrung a groan from him.
"Ruth, Ruth, Ruth," he muttered, and then his mind took to the memory-haunted highway that led back, back of the lonely years of St. Angé; past a certain black horror that had stood, and would always stand, as a thing that should not have existed; but which had been, and would always remain, an object that cast a shadow before it and behind it.
"Did you do this thing?"
"I did."
Question and answer made up the vital happening in Gaston's life. Everything before led up to them, and all that had occurred since was the outcome.