“As soon as you can, you must get out of this, Steve,” said Gibbs. “Why can't you write to your aunt, or Jake Benson? He owes it to you to do something; it's not much to ask.”
But Stephen shook his head.
“Oh, come now, that's merely your pride. Just make up your mind to let things drop here; you shouldn't risk your health racing about the country; at best you'll only clear up a few hundreds, even your aunt could do that much for you and not feel it.”
“You don't understand, Gibbs; I cannot ask anything of her; her means are small enough, and my obligations to her are already greater than I can ever hope to discharge.”
“Well, of course, you know best; but I want to see you get away from here, Steve, you are using yourself up to no purpose. It's a dog's life; I feel it, and things don't grind into me the way they do into you.”
Later in the day the fever which had left him returned; and a feeling of despair laid hold of Stephen. Suppose he did not get well—suppose he should die! It would be so much more easy to die than to live; why should he wish to pass again beyond the four white walls of that room! Then he thought of his little son, and begged Gibbs who was watching at his side to find him pen and paper. These were brought him, the general propped him up in bed with pillows, and the sick man took the pen with feeble fingers. After all, in his poverty and sickness, his misery of body and spirit, in what he now believed was the final dire extremity, he turned to Virginia. She had been his first friend and she was his last. With infinite difficulty, for his eyes seemed ready to leap from their sockets, and the pen would slip from his weak fingers, he wrote two letters. The first was to Virginia; the other to Benson. This labour, for it was a real labour, he finished at intervals during the afternoon. The result was two rambling incoherent letters which bore entirely upon his son's future; of himself he said nothing. What was in these letters Gibbs did not know then; but when they were written, he said:
“Now I suppose you want me to post 'em for you, Steve?” Landray shook his head.
“No, we'll wait until to-morrow.”
“But why wait?” urged Gibbs impatiently. “You'll be changing your mind the first thing I know, Steve.”
“Perhaps I shall—I may not send them at all,” and he lay back wearily among his pillows. “I don't want to alarm my aunt needlessly,” he added.