But I do not know--I do not know!... I mean
to be his following fiend. To have him ever feel me--when he turns his
head ever to see me!"
The other sighed sharply. He thought to himself, "Oh, mind, thy
abysses!"
Indeed, Glenfernie looked at this moment stronger. He folded Jamie's
letter and put it by. He drew the bowl of flowers to him and picked
forth a rose. "A week--two at most--and I shall be wholly recovered!"
His voice had fiber, decision, even a kind of cheer.
Strickland thought, "It is his fancied remedy, at which he snatches!"
Glenfernie continued: "We'll set to work to-morrow upon long
arrangements! With you to manage here, I will not be missed." Without
waiting for the morrow he took quill and paper and began to figure.
Strickland watched him. At last he said, "Will you go at once in three
ships to Holland, Portugal, and America?"
"Has the onlooker room for irony, while to me it looks so simple? I
shall ship first to the likeliest land.... In ten days--in two weeks
at most--to Edinburgh--"
Strickland left him figuring and, rising, went to the window. He saw
the great cedar, and in mind the pilgrim who planted it there. All the
pilgrims--all the crusaders--all the men in Plutarch; the long frieze
of them, the full ocean of them ... all the self-search, dressed as
search of another.
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