“I want to talk to you, man to man. I’m going to show you that I have confidence in you, Lane. I’m not saying this to any one else—only to you. It’s a big matter, Lane. It will prove that I want to be square with you.”
“You’re going to take her, I say!”
“For ten years, Lane, the big lumber interests in this State have been trying to get the right man into the governor’s chair. You are interested in timber. You are a State employé. We all need certain things, and now we are in a way to get them. I’m going to be the next governor of this State, Lane. I’ve got the pledges, from the State committee down through the ranks. I’m going to be nominated in the next State convention. I’ve spent fifty thousand already. Now, you see, I’m being frank and honest with you.” His voice had a quaver. He was explaining as he would explain to a child. “All the timber interests are behind me. See what it means if I am turned down? A scandal would do it. It’s the petty scandal that kills a man in this State quicker than anything else—scandal or a laugh! I can’t carry that girl out of the woods and declare her to be my daughter. It would kill all my chances for nomination. The papers would be full of it. And think of my family!”
Lane’s crude idea of an atonement was not so vague now. His brain whirled more dizzily, for the problem was bigger—and so was the revenge. He chuckled. It was the spirit of revenge, after all, that was driving him, and his madman’s soul now realized it and relished it. He looked up at the saffron sky and snuffed the scorching air. He felt the impulse seething up from the ruin of the forest, and with almost a sense of relief loosed the grip that had been holding him above the tide of his soul’s fire and blood.
He ran and recovered Barrett’s wallet from among the leaves, and searched it hastily. He found among the papers a few folded blank sheets bearing John Barrett’s name and monogram. There was a fountain-pen stuck in a loop. The paper and the pen he shoved into Barrett’s hands.
“Write it!” he screamed. “Write it that she is your daughter, and agree to take her and do right by her. Write it! I wouldn’t take your word. I want a paper. You’ve got to take her.”
Barrett went pale, but his thick lips pinched themselves in desperate resolve. With the aspiration of his life close to realization he knew all that such a document could do to him. He stood up and tossed the paper away.
“I’m willing to do right by the girl in the best way I can,” he said, firmly; “but as to cutting my throat for her, I won’t do it. You’ve got my word. That’s all I’ll do for you.”
“It’s all?” asked Lane, with bitter menace. “All, after what you’ve done to me?”
“I won’t do it,” he repeated, stiffly.