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This man had blessed him this morning, and called the love of heaven on his head and its tender mercy on his whole long life. Zerviah walked with quick step. He lifted his head, with its short, black, coarse hair. His eyes, staring for sleep, flashed, fed with a food the body knows not of.
The hot dust curdled in the shadow that coiled beneath the stark palmetto. That palmetto always looked like a corpse, though there was life in it yet. Zerviah came to the door of Scip's hovel for air, and looked at the thing. It seemed like something that ought to be buried. There were no other trees. The everglades were miles away. The sand and the scant, starved grass stretched all around.
"It's clear enough what brought him to Calhoun," said this man. "What do you suppose the fellow does with his five dollars a day?" The Committee on the Water Supply promptly divided into a Sub-Vigilance, and to the Sub-Vigilance Committee Zerviah Hope's case was referred. The result was, that he was followed on pay-day.
"But you told of it, Scip." "I never told nobody but Jupiter, the durn fool!" persisted Scip. "Who is Jupiter?" "Doctor Remane's Jupiter, him that holds his hoss, that he brung up from the fever. He said he wouldn't tell. I never done believe it, never!" "It seems to me, Scip," said Zerviah, in a low, kind voice, "that I wouldn't have told if I'd been you. But never mind."
The shadow beneath the palmetto grew long over Scip's fresh grave. The stars were dim and few. The wind rose, and the lights in the city, where watchers wept over their sick, trembled on the frail breeze, and seemed to be multiplied, like objects seen through tears. Through the wooden shutter, Zerviah could see the lights, and the lonely palmetto, and the grave. He could see those few cold stars.
"Thank you," said the Disagreeable Man. "And God bless you for telling me." Then he added: "There were some few loose sheets of paper on the counter. She had begun her book. May I have them?" Zerviah placed them in his hand. "And this photograph," the old man said kindly. "I will spare it for you." The picture of the little thin eager face was folded up with the papers. The two men parted.
Who leaned to him? Who brooded over him? Who put arms beneath him? Who looked at him, as those look who love the sick too much to shrink from them? "I don't know You," said Zerviah, in a distinct voice. Presently he smiled. "Yes, I guess I do. I see now. I'm not used to You. I never saw You before. You are Him I've heered about God's Son!
"Yes," he answered a little uneasily. He was not accustomed to have questions asked of him. "Tell me about it," she said. "It was long ago," he said half dreamily, "long before I married Malvina. And she died. That was all." "That was all," repeated Bernardine, looking at him wonderingly. Then she drew nearer to him. "And you have loved, Uncle Zerviah? And you were loved?"
They said you killed a man for jealousy, I believe; something about a woman." "What else?" repeated the nurse, steadily. "I told them I did not believe one word of it!" cried Marian Dare. "Thank you, madam," said Zerviah Hope, after a scarcely perceptible pause; "but it is true." He drew one fierce breath. "She was beautiful," he said. "I loved her; he ruined her; I stabbed him!"
He still held the volume in his hand; but he did not continue reading, he watched her arranging the pages of a dilapidated book. Suddenly she looked up from her work. "Uncle Zerviah," she said brusquely, "you have lived through a long life, and must have passed through many different experiences. Was there ever a time when you cared for people rather than books?"
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