He was going to part with Vada, a thought which filled him with dismay, and yet there was hope in his heart. But then where the head might easily enough fail his heart had accepted responsibility. There was a note in the woman’s appeal which struck a responsive chord in his own credulous heart, and somehow he felt that his parting with Vada was not to be for long. He felt that Jessie would eventually come back to him. He felt, though he did not put the thought into words, that no woman could feel as she did about her children, and be utterly dead to all the old affection that had brought them into the world.
He turned away at last. The air was good to breathe to-night, the world was good after all. Yes, it was better than he had thought it. There was much to be done to-morrow, so he would “turn in.”
It was at that moment that something white lying at his feet caught his eye. Instantly he remembered it, and, stooping, picked it up. How strange it was the difference of his feelings as he lifted the outer wrapping of Jessie’s letter now. There was something almost reverent in the way he handled the paper.
He closed the door and secured it, and went across to the lamp, where he stood looking down at the stained and dirty covering. He turned it over, his thoughts abstracted and busy with the woman who had folded it ready for its journey to him. Yes, she had folded it, she had sent it, she––
Suddenly his abstraction passed, and he bent over the disfiguring finger-marks. There was writing upon the paper, and the writing was not in Jessie’s hand. He raised it closer to his eyes and began to read. And, with each word he made out, his faculties became more and more angrily concentrated.
“You’ll hand the kid over at once. I’ll be on the Spawn City trail ten miles out. If you ain’t there with the kid noon to-morrow there’s going to be bad trouble.
James.”
“James! James!” Scipio almost gasped the name. His pale eyes were hot and furious, and the blood surged to his brain.
He had forgotten James until now. He had forgotten the traitor responsible for his undoing. So much was Jessie in his life that James had counted for little when he thought of her. But now the scoundrel swept all other thoughts pell-mell out of his head. He was suddenly ablaze with a rage such as he had never before experienced. All that was human in him was in a state of fierce resentment. He hated James, and desired with all his small might to do him a bodily hurt. Yes, he could even delight in killing him. He would show him no mercy. He would revel in witnessing his death agonies. This man had not only wronged him. He had killed also the spiritual purity of the mother of his children. Oh, how he hated him. And now––now he had dared to threaten. He, stained to his very heart’s core with villainy, had dared to interfere in a matter which concerned a mother’s pure love for her children. The thought maddened him, and he crushed the paper in his hand and ground it under his heel.
He would not do it. He could not. He had forgotten the association to which he was sending the innocent Vada. No, no. Innocent little Vada. Jessie must do without her.
He flung himself into a chair and gave himself up to passionate thought. For two hours he sat there raging, half mad with his hideous feelings against James. But as the long hours slipped away he slowly calmed. His hatred remained for the man, but he kept it out of his silent struggle with himself. In spite of his first heated decision he was torn by a guiding instinct that left him faltering. He realized that his hatred of the man, and nothing else, was really responsible for his negative attitude. And this was surely wrong. What he must really consider was the welfare of Vada, and––Jessie. The whole thing was so difficult, so utterly beyond him. He was drawn this way and that, struggling with a brain that he knew to be incompetent. But in the end it was again his heart that was victorious. Again his heart would take no denial.