"No. I never sleep when the wind howls; it gets into my imagination. I'd rather talk. The thing I have to tell you—is what I shall tell Farwell if I ever see him again. It's rather a bungling thing I've done. I'll receive my reward, doubtlessly, but I would do the same, were I placed in the same position, over and over again.
"Farwell Maxwell, known to you as Anton Farwell, has been part, the biggest part, of my life since we were young boys. We were about as pitiful a contrast as can be imagined, and for that reason met each other's needs more completely. We had only one thing in common—money. He was a straight, handsome fellow, while I was—what you see before you—a crooked, distorted creature, but one in whose heart and soul dwelt all the cravings and aspirations of youth and intelligence. I was alone in the world. My father died before my birth, and I cost my mother—her life. Farwell had, until he was twenty, an adoring though foolish mother, who laid undue emphasis upon his rights and privileges. She, and an older brother, died when he was twenty-one—died before the trouble came, but not before they had done all they could to train him for it. At twenty-one he was a selfish, hot-headed fellow with a fortune at his command, a confused sense of right and wrong, an ungoverned, artistic nature swayed by impulse, and, yes, honest affection and generous flashes. And I? Well, I found I could buy with my money what otherwise I must have gone without, but the shadow never counted for the substance with me. The fawning favour, which held its sneer in check, filled me with disgust, and I would have been a bitter, lonely fellow but—for Farwell.
"I never could quite understand him; I do not to-day, but he, from the beginning, did not seem to recognize or admit my limitations. Through preparatory school and college we went side by side. He called me by the frank and brutal names that boys and men only use to equals. I wonder if you can understand when I say that to hear him address me as an infernal coward, when I shrank from certain things, was about the highest compliment I knew?"
"Yes," murmured Priscilla, "I can understand that." She could not see Boswell; the low, impassioned words came from out the shadows like thoughts. "Yes, I can quite understand how you felt."
"I am glad that you can, for then you will see—why I have done—what I could for Farwell—when he needed me. Back in those old days he was not content to shame me into playing my part; by that power of his, that worked both good and evil, he compelled others, in accepting him, to accept me on equal terms. There was a seat for me at the tables to which he was invited; he discovered my poor talent for telling a story, and somehow hypnotized others into considering me a wit! A wit!"
A silence fell between the two by the fire. Priscilla's throat was hard and dry, her heart aching with pity.
"And then," Boswell continued drearily, "the crash came when he was only twenty-five! I suppose he was savagely primitive. That was why externals did not count so much with him. He could not brook opposition, especially if injustice marked it; he was never able to estimate or eliminate. He was like a child when an obstacle presented itself. If he could not get around it, he attacked it with blind passion.
"It was part of his nature to espouse the cause of the weak and needy; that was what held him, unconsciously, to me; it was what attracted him to Joan Moss."
The name fell upon Priscilla's mind like a shock. The story was nearing the crisis.
"She was outwardly beautiful; inwardly she was as deformed—as I! But in neither case was he ever able to get the right slant. He loved us both in his splendid, uncritical way. His love brought me to his feet in abject devotion: it lured the woman to accomplish his destruction. Something, some one, menaced her! He tried to sweep the evil aside, but——"