"I'm a-goin' to give up what the' is left o' me to make you suffer more!" Mayfield gibbered. "I'm a-goin' to lay down thar in 'at black hole wi' her—wi' Tot Singleton—I'm a-goin' to be buried in the same grave wi' her, yore wife, and he'p yeself ef ye can!"
Yes, the man was insane. Hatred had absorbed all his faculties.
Wolfe stood like a work in bronze, and stared. Mayfield ran into the water, cursing as he went, and sank like a stone, down, down, down to darkness eternal. Wolfe even went whiter as he watched the bubbles and lessening ripples that marked the spot where the worst man in the world had died that his devilish triumph might be a little greater.
His lips moved, and it was to say this, brokenly, "My cup—of bitterness—is brimming. Why, my God, why?"
He made his way back to the lonesome cabin. He threw the burst shotgun out to the snow, which hid it mercifully, and tossed Mayfield's slouch hat into the fire.
There was a little of sweet, sad comfort in handling the things that had been his wife's. When he could no longer bear to look upon them, he pushed a chair to the cabin's front doorway and sat down, unmindful of the cold, and absently watched the chilled sun sink behind the snowy forest.
A great silence was about him. There was not even a wind to sigh in the tops of the giant hemlocks. It was quite as though he were the sole inhabitant of some lost, dead world.
XXIII
When darkness had fallen, Wolfe closed the door and went to the low-burned fire.