"But I am not the only one responsible. Can you listen? Can you hear the
particulars? One always feels that one's own case is peculiar; one is
never the common sinner, you know.
"I have a friend at Pocatello; he is my partner in business. Two years
ago he married a New York girl, and brought her out there to live. If
you knew Pocatello, you would know what a privilege it was to have their
house to go to. They made me free of it, as people do in the West. There
is nothing they could not have asked of me in return for such
hospitality; it was an obligation not less sacred on my part than that
of family.
"When my friend went away on long journeys, on our common business, it
was my place in his absence to care for all that was his. There are many
little things a woman needs a man to do for her in a place like
Pocatello; it was my pride and privilege to be at all times at the
service of this lady. She was needlessly grateful, but she liked me
besides: she was one who showed her likes and dislikes frankly. She had
grown up in a small, exclusive set of persons who knew one anther's
grandfathers, and were accustomed to say what they pleased inside; what
outsiders thought did not matter. She had not learned to be careful; she
despised the need of it. She thought Pocatello and the people there were
a joke. But there is a serious side even to Pocatello: you cannot joke
with rattlesnakes and vitriol and slow mines. She made enemies by her
gay little sallies, and she would never condescend to explain. When
people said things that showed they had interpreted her words or actions
in a stupid or a vulgar way, she gave the thing up. It was not her
business to adapt herself to such people; it was theirs to understand
her. If they could not, then it did not matter what they thought. That
was her theory of life in Pocatello.
"One night I was in a place--not for my pleasure--a place where a lady's
name is never spoken by a gentleman. I heard her name spoken by a fool;
he coupled it with mine, and laughed. I walked out of the place, and
forgot what I was there for till I found myself down the street with my
heart jumping. That time I did right, you would say.
"But I met him again. It was at the depot at Pocatello. I was seeing a
man off--a stranger in the place, but a friend of my friends; we had
dined at their house together. This other--I think he had been
drinking--I suppose he must have included me in his stupid spite against
the lady. He made his fool speech again. The man who was with me heard
him, and looked astounded. I stepped up to him. I said--I don't know
what. I ordered him to leave that name alone. He repeated it, and I
struck him. He pulled a pistol on me. I grabbed him, and twisted it out
of his hand. How it happened I cannot tell, but there in the smoke he
lay at my feet. The train was moving out. My friend pulled me aboard.
The papers said I ran away. I did not. I waited at Omaha for Mr. Burke.
"And there I met you, three days ago; and all I care for now is just to
know that you will not think of me always by that word."
"What word?"
"Never mind; spare me the word. Look at me! Do I seem to you at all the
same man?"
Phebe slowly lifted her eyes.
"Is there nothing left of me? Answer me the truth. I have a right to be
answered."
"You are the same; but all the rest of it is strange. I do not see how
such a thing could be."
"Can you not conceive of one wild act in a man not inevitably always a
sinner?"
"Oh, yes; but not that act. I cannot understand the impulse to take a
life."
"I did not think of his miserable life; I only meant to stop his
talking. He tried to take mine. I wish he had. But no, no; I should have
missed this glimpse of you. Just when it is too late I learn what life
is worth."
"Do men truly do those things for the sake of women? Were you thinking
of your friend's wife when you struck him?"
"I was thinking of the man--what a foul-mouthed fool he was--not fit
to"--He stopped, seeing the look on Phebe's face.
"Oh, I'm impossible, I know, to one like you! It's rather hard I should
have to be compared, in your mind, to a race of men like your father.
Have you never known any other men?"
"I have read of all the men other people read of. I have some
imagination."
"I suppose you read your Bible."
"Yes: the men in the Bible were not all of the Spirit; but they
worshiped the Spirit--they were humble when they did wrong."
"Did women ever love them?"
Phebe was silent.
"Do not talk to me of the Spirit," Ludovic pleaded. "I am a long way
from that. At least I am not a hypocrite--not yet. Wait till I am a
'trusty,' scheming for a pardon. Can you not give me one word of simple
human comfort? There are just forty minutes more."
"What can I say?"
"Tell me this--and oh, be careful! Could you, if it were permitted a
criminal like me to expiate his sin in the world among living men, in
human relations with them--could we ever meet? Could you say 'thee' to
me, not as to an afflicted person or a child? Am I to be only a text,
another instance"--
"Many would not blame you. Neither do I blame you, not knowing that
life or those people," said Phebe. "But there was One who turned away
from the evil-speakers, and wrote upon the sand."
"But those evil-speakers spoke the truth."
"Can a lie be stopped by a pistol-shot? But we need not argue."
"No; I see how it is. I shall be to you only another of the wretched
sons of Cain."
"I am thy sister," she said, and gave him her hand.
He held it in his strong, cold, trembling clasp.
"Darling, do you know where I am going? I shall never see you, never
again--unless you are like the sainted women of your faith who walked
the prisons, and preached to them in bonds."
"Thy bonds are mine: but I am no preacher."
The drowsy lights swayed and twinkled, the wheels rang on the frozen
rails as the wild, white wastes flew by.
"Father shall never know it," Phebe murmured. "He shall never know, if I
can help it, why you called yourself unhappy."
"Is it such an unspeakable horror to you?" He winced.
"He has not many years to live; it would only be one disappointment
more." She was leaning back in her seat; her eyes were closed; she
looked dead weary, but patient, as if this too were life, and not more
than her share.
"Has your father any money, dear?"