now or--or--_then_. Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak!
You shall speak!"
He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder. Fairley
slowly raised his head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. The
weak lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile, but the eyes
wherein the fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blank
and tenantless; the flickering intellect that had lit them was blown
out and vanished.
Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment,
gazing into the night. When he turned back again toward the fire his
face was as colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire of
passion was gone from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating and
slow. He went up to the table.
"I say, old man," he said, with a strange smile and an odd, premature
suggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his voice, "you
wouldn't mind giving me this, would you?" and he took up the picture of
Flip. The old man nodded repeatedly. "Thank you," said Lance. He went
to the door, paused a moment, and returned. "Good-by, old man," he
said, holding out his hand. Fairley took it with a childish smile.
"He's dead," said the old man softly, holding Lance's hand, but
pointing to the hearth. "Yes," said Lance, with the faintest of smiles
on the palest of faces. "You feel sorry for any one that's dead, don't
you?" Fairley nodded again. Lance looked at him with eyes as remote as
his own, shook his head, and turned away. When he reached the door he
laid his revolver carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostentatiously, upon
a chair. But when he stepped from the threshold he stopped a moment in
the light of the open door to examine the lock of a small derringer
which he drew from his pocket. He then shut the door carefully, and
with the same slow, hesitating step, felt his way into the night.
He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some spot
where the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot that would
yield him rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and, above all,
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