"You have never failed me, never, never," she whispered. "You are not
failing me now." And then I heard Starling's voice at the door calling
my name.
I opened to him mechanically, and accepted his pleasant phrases with a
face like wood, though my manner was apt enough, I think. I had no
feeling as regarded him; all my thought was with the woman by the table.
He went to her with his news, but she interrupted him. "I know." Her
face was as expressionless as my own. "I am going with you," she said
to him. "When do we leave?"
"In a few minutes." He looked from one to the other of us, and if he
could not probe the situation it was perhaps no wonder. We had
forgotten him, and we sat like dead people. For once his tremendous,
compelling presence was ignored, yet my tongue replied to him
courteously, and I could not but admit the perfection of his attitude.
He deplored the necessity that took his cousin from me; he, and all of
his people, labored under great indebtedness to me. He was dignified,
direct of thought and speech. The man whom I had seen by the dead
ashes of the camp fire; the man who had held my wife's miniature, and
taunted me with what it meant,--that man was gone.
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