"I've done a thing never accomplished in human life before, a thing more terrific than the world's entire history, from the moment of the first atom crawling on it has ever known!"
He could not have spoken more solemnly and convincingly if he had reverently murdered, one by one, a whole nation of people, and it was some such picture that came into Henry Montagu's mind as, shivering and fascinated, he watched him and listened.
But the young man said no more.
"If—if you will tell me what you've done," said Mr. Montagu haltingly, his pity sweeping every caution away, "or simply what you want of me, I will do anything for you that I possibly can."
"There is nothing in this world," answered the boy wearily, "that anybody can do for me." But suddenly, impulsively, he added: "There is just one thing, that you can do—not for me, but for yourself. Don't ask me questions. For your own sake don't!"
"But—" began Mr. Montagu.
"If you knew who I am or what I am, and what I've deliberately done," cried the boy, "you'd curse this night, and curse me, the longest day you lived! What—what is your name?"
"Henry Montagu," said his host simply.
He pondered it. "That has a nice sound. I like it. And I—I like you. So don't ask me questions!"
The elder man was looking down at the thin white hands again, and the naïve comment brought a sudden contraction to his throat. "Poor little boy!" was on his lips, but an intuition like a woman's warned him that the words would make the desolate figure weep again, and his utmost strength quailed from the thought of seeing it, now that he had seen the face. As the white hands clasped themselves together, he had seen that the under sides of the wrists were bruised and dark. Facially, nothing could have been more unlike than this youth to the paint and plaster symbols that crowded before him from his memory, yet the red drops that he had seen drip to the floor, the wickedness and waste that he seemed to expiate and represent, the whole obvious torment of his being, had forced a simile upon him which he now blurted out.