His brain grew hot, and he broke out into a sweat. His head drooped forward until his unshaven chin rested upon his sunken chest. His eyes were lusterless, his two rough hands clenched nervously. Just for one weak moment he longed for forgetfulness. He longed to shut out those hideous visions with which he was pursued. He longed for peace, for rest from the dull aching of his poor torn heart. His courage was at a low ebb. Something of the nature of the hour had got hold of him. It was sundown. There was the long black night between him and the morrow. He felt so helpless, so utterly incapable.
But his moment passed. He raised his head. He stood erect from the door casing. He planted his feet firmly, and his teeth gritted. The spirit of the man rose again. He must not give way. He would not. The children should not starve while there was food in the world. If he had no money, he had two strong hands and––
He started. A sudden noise behind him turned him facing about with bristling nerves. What was it? It sounded like the falling of a heavy weight. And yet it did not sound like anything big. The room was quite still, and looked, in the growing dusk, just the same as usual.
Suddenly the children leapt into his thought, and he started for the inner room. But he drew up short as he passed behind the table. A large stone was lying at his feet, and a folded paper was tied about it. He glanced round at the window and––understood.
He stooped and picked the missile up. Then he moved to the window and looked out. There was no one about. The evening shadows were rapidly deepening, but he was sure there was no one about. He turned back to the door where there was still sufficient light for his purposes. He sat down upon the sill with the stone in his hand. He was staring at the folded paper.
Yes, he understood. And instinctively he knew that the paper was to bring him fresh disaster. He knew it was a letter. And he knew whence it came.
At last he looked up. The mystery of the letter remained. It was there in his hand, waiting the severing of the string that held it, but somehow as yet he lacked the courage to read it. And so some moments passed. But at last he sighed and looked at it again. Then he reached round to his hip for his sheath-knife. The stone dropped to the ground, and with it the outer covering of the letter. With trembling fingers he unfolded the notepaper.
Yes, it was as he expected, as he knew, a letter from Jessie. And as he read it his heart cried out, and the warm blood in his veins seemed to turn to water. He longed for the woman whose hand had penned those words as he had never longed for anything in his life. All the old wound was ruthlessly torn open, and it was as though a hot, searing iron had been thrust into its midst. He cared nothing for what she had done or was. He wanted her.
It was a letter full of pathetic pleading for the possession of Vada. It was not a demand. It was an appeal. An appeal to all that was his better nature. His honesty, his manliness, his simple unselfishness. It was a letter thrilling with the outpourings of a mother’s heart craving for possession of the small warm life that she had been at such pains to bestow. It was the mother talking to him as he had never heard the wife and woman talk. There was a passion, a mother love in the hastily scrawled words that drove straight to the man’s simple heart. One little paragraph alone set his whole body quivering with responsive emotion, and started the weak tears to his troubled eyes.
“Let me have her, Zip. Let me have her. Maybe I’ve lost my right, but I’m her mother. I brought her into the world, Zip. And what that means you can never understand. She’s my flesh and blood. She’s part of me. I gave her the life she’s got. I’m her mother, Zip, and I’ll go mad without her.”