Robbie closed the book gently and put it away. It didn’t seem the least bit funny then.
At midnight, when the long night trek was over, and we were rolled in our blankets near the camp-fire, Robbie’s heart was full, and he spoke—slowly and in half-broken tones:
“Ye mind the time he sent for me? Ye do? Yes; well, it was to ask my forgiveness for what he said the day I struck him. Ay, he did that!”
Robbie looked slowly round the circle through dimmed glasses, and then went on hesitatingly:
“And he said, too, that we had all been too good to him, and that he had played it low on us; and that he—he hoped the good God would pardon him the greatest crime of all. And he said that I must give his Prayer-Book and his zither,” (Robbie continued in a lower and reverent tone) “to—to his child—his little boy.”
“Soltké’s child?” came from all together.
Robbie nodded, and there was a space of time when everyone shifted a little and felt chilled; but it was Gowan who put our common thought into words.
“Where is his wife?” he asked slowly. “Dead!” said Robbie. “I—I didn’t know he was married.” Robbie’s look was a prayer for mercy, as he answered: “He wasn’t!”