Charron lifted his head slowly from his knees. His face was changed as if years had passed over him. He said slowly: “Do you remember? You’re speaking to a man who would have killed you an hour back.”
“I remember. Is it so long?”
“Yes.” The dead voice altered; he went on, hurriedly. “I have sat here with you. I have not touched you. I am not—fit to touch you. I’ve waited; not knowing if you’d live or die . . . . You can never forgive me, of course. It’s past that. But if you could give me the charity you’d show to any cur, the kindness you have for a lost husky or a hungry Siwash . . . . and then let me go . . . .”
The broken, humble voice died away. After a long silence, Rainger said: “Then you did not look?”
“No.”
“Come and look now, then. I was wrong too, Will. I should have spoken.”
Charron crept to his side. Rainger lifted the little canvas bag and shook something from it into his hand. This he held out to Charron.
“This is what was in it, Will.” Charron’s very life was in abeyance as he looked and looked again.
“Two long needles,” went on Rainger’s quiet voice, “their points stuck in a shrivelled chestnut that Laure picked up in the woods one day. They’re the only needles I’ve got whose points will go through leather. I keep ’em that way round my neck so they won’t get rusty. That’s your silver hairpin, Will.”
After a long time Charron moved. He sank slowly to his face, and lay there with his hands clasped over his head. Presently, he began to cry as a tired child cries, with sobs and broken words. Rainger waited, silently. When that passion had also spent itself, he too, moved. He took from his belt the pouch containing the hoarded gold-dust, and laid it by Charron’s hand. “This is yours, Will,” he said, gently.