“Yes,” said Elias; and it required a great effort of will to concentrate his mind sufficiently to find, and to regulate his organs of speech sufficiently to shape, the words: “Yes, come with me.”
He led the boy to the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty-eighth Street. The sun shone brightly. There was no wind. But it was very cold. Elias thought: “Perhaps it is the cold that makes me feel so strangely. I feel exactly as though my brain were being frozen, as hard as ice.”
When they had reached the corner, he said: “Now, young man, I want you to take this note to this address, No.—, right on this block—that house, over there, just beyond the lamp post—and I want you to ask to see the lady to whom it is directed—Miss Redwood—to see her in person; do you understand? See her in person, and deliver this note into her own hands, and to nobody else. And then you come back here to this corner, where I shall wait for you. Now, hurry.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the boy, with a sagacious wink; “I catch on, sir;” and started off.
Elias watched him—down and across the street, and up her stoop—till he vanished in her vestibule. For what seemed an eternity, the boy remained out of sight. Then, presently, he reappeared; and in a minute or two was again at his employer's side.
“Well,” questioned Elias, “well, did—did you see her?”
“Yes, sir; sawr 'er.”
It made Elias's heart beat to realize that this boy had just stood in his lady's presence, had looked full upon her, breathed the atmosphere that she glorified, listened to the celestial music of her voice. It was with something akin to reverence for the young barbarian, that he repeated: “You saw her, you actually saw her!”
“Well, so I remarked, sir,” replied the boy.
“And—— and you gave her the note?”