“‘He is the same man who left some of his luggage at the landing below, is he not?’
“‘A young man with light curly hair and upturned mustache, very strong, quick in his movements, shows his teeth when he speaks--very white teeth--’
“‘He was smiling--a strange smile from one whose lips were still parched.
“Had I not stretched out my hand to steady him he would have fallen.
“‘Dead!’ he cried, a look of horror in his eyes. ‘No! You don’t mean--not starved to death! No, no, you don’t mean that!’ He was trembling all over.
“‘No, he blew out his brains last night. His grave is outside. Come, I will show it to you.’
“I had almost to carry him. For an instant he leaned against a tree growing near the poor fellow’s head, his eyes fixed on the rude mound. Then he slowly sank to his knees and burst into tears, sobbing:
“‘Oh! If I could have stopped him! He was so young to die.’
“Two days later he set out on his return to the coast.”
With the ending of the story, Bayard turned to Mme. Constantin:
“There, Louise, you have the rest of it. You understand now what I meant when I said there was something stronger than revenge;--the primeval.”
Greenough, who had sat absorbed, drinking in every word, laid his hand on Bayard’s shoulder.
Bayard slipped his gold pencil from its chain and traced two names. “My God, Bayard! That’s the same man I told you is dying of a broken heart.”
“Yes--that’s why I told you the story, Greenough. But his heart is not breaking for the woman he loved and lost, but for the man he hunted--the man I buried.”
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Homo, by F. Hopkinson Smith