"Now you answer me. Are they steady?"
"Yes."
"Very reluctantly given. Are they quite steady and firm like your own or like those of your parson friend?"
"Oh, don't, don't! Yes—quite firm, quite steady."
"You see! Now look at my eyes, look into them, lady dear. At once, madam. You find that trying, do you, but persevere. Well—what do you find? Are they wild, bloodshot, glazed, glaring? No? Only your image therein. And by God, Pauline, there never was and never will be any image half so beautiful, half so dear. That you must and will believe. Well, then—no, don't draw your hands away—about this money, for I'm perfectly sober and desirous of telling you the truth. You have the right to know. One thing led to another, but the first of it was like this. I've always been a scribbler in my lazy moments, as you know, but perhaps you can't be expected to know that I have put care and strong thought, art and heart both, into some verse that I occasionally would take out and look over, and then lock away again. How could I, forlorn and degraded, an outcast from society, hope to effect anything in literature! Yet I never destroyed any of these pet lucrubations of mine, and one day, a few months ago, I picked out a poem, copied it fair when my hand wasn't shaking, and sent it to a magazine in England. They took it—and I was so surprised that I went on a good long drunk. But when I got straight again I found a handsome cheque awaiting me and the hope, very warmly expressed by the way, that I would let him, the editor, have many more in the same vein. Many more, mind you, with cheques to match, so long as my industry holds out and I can find enough to say. Now consider for a moment what that signifies to a man like me, fallen so low, I confess it, ostracized and exiled, cut off from all old associations and without hope of overcoming my fault sufficiently to enable me to make a fresh start. It meant not only money, but employment, and congenial employment. It meant that after all, these years of leanness have not been wasted, that I have something to say if I can only retain the knack, the trick, of saying it in the way people will like, the public like. This alone would be much, but with it goes, you see, some money, so, as I said, one thing brings another; and money after all, Pauline, is what many a man as lost as I am mostly requires. It isn't as if I'd had money, squandered it and lost it; I never had it—I never had it."
He paused, and for a moment there had sounded that high dangerous ring in his voice she knew so well, and Miss Clairville drew her hands away.
"But that was not all," she said coldly. "You spoke of something else, of two things that had happened. What was the other?"
"The second grew out of the first, out of what I have told you. The poems—they were a couple of ranch episodes,—I'll let you see them presently—were signed by my full name, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree. I never supposed any one I knew would see them, or seeing them trouble their heads about the writer; in fact, I never thought about the matter. But somebody did see them and did remember me, and did take the trouble to find out who I was, and where I was, and I've had within the last fortnight two letters from a well known firm of lawyers in London informing me that I am without doubt the man they have been searching for during the past year, and that quite a respectable little fortune awaits me. There have been a few deaths in the family; I am next of kin and so that's all there is about it. Simple as you like, but true beyond a doubt, and so I thought I'd celebrate the event to-night with you, Pauline, and perhaps confer with you—you woman of the world, with your knowledge of life and of me—of me, alas! Me at my worst, Pauline, but let us hope really my worst."
He rose and walked around the room, unconscious of the dark shadow that also walked austerely outside the window. "This money—it is a great thing that has happened to me. It is difficult to realize. Don't mind my walking up and down; it soothes me and I'm excited too, I think."
Pauline seemed dazed.