“Haven’t you had any letters from your father, or anybody at your home, since you left?”
“No. It was two years ago that I left, and nobody knows where I am. I have been up in the back country ever since, and I have changed my name, too. I won’t tell you my real name. It would not do any good. But you and I have been friends, and I don’t want you to think I’m a coward. That’s why I’ve told you my story.”
“I understand.”
“I’m sure you do. When I knew that Richard Jarvis was dead, I made a solemn vow never to fight again, no matter what might be the circumstances. It has been a hard vow to keep, but I’ve done it somehow. I never had to be called a coward on account of it until to-night, however. That is why I’m going away.”
“I should advise you to go home,” she murmured. “You say your father is wealthy. I always felt sure that you were not the sort of man you have allowed yourself to be regarded out here. You are not an ordinary laborer. Your manners are those of a gentleman. That shows in so many little ways.”
“I’m a murderer!”
“No, no. Don’t use such a word as that. It was not murder—if it happened in a fair fight. Any of the men about here would say you had a right to do it.”
“That may be. But it would not be looked at in that way in my home near New York. I am convinced that if I were to go back I should be arrested and have to go through all the horrors of a trial for murder. The end would be, very likely, the electric chair in Sing Sing. My blood turns to water and my heart to ice when I think of such a possibility. I am a coward about that. I am not afraid of death, I believe—of death itself. But to die in that way! The shame of it!”
He shuddered and covered his face with his hands. She touched him gently on the arm.
“Don’t, Mr. Gordon! You torment yourself needlessly. Take my advice and go back home. I must leave you now. My father is going on to play his violin solo. He does a trick act, you know—plays the violin in all sorts of curious ways. Uses only one string, imitates cries of animals and birds, and so on. He doesn’t like to do it, for he is an accomplished musician, and he feels that he is degrading his art. But the audience demands it, and he is such a master of his instrument that he can do anything.”