llowfield, though he was
not to remain there. He had received a call from an important church in
New York and had accepted it. He was endeavouring to make arrangements
that Latimer could be near him. On his return this evening he had found a
letter he had been expecting. It referred to Latimer, and he was anxious
to talk it over with him. He wished he would come in, and felt a little
restless over his delay, though he knew they would have time to say but
few words to each other before it was time for the lecture to begin. He
walked up and down the room looking down at the green carpet and
thinking, his thoughts wandering vaguely to the little pursuant of the
herd claim and the letters he had wanted to deliver. He smiled faintly,
remembering the small frame in the over-large clothes and the bucolic
countenance with its over-sharpness of expression.

The member of the committee looked into the room.

"They are beginning to turn people away from the doors," he said. "Half
the Cabinet is here--I never saw such an audience."

As he went away smiling, someone passed him in entering the room. Baird,
who was smiling also, changed his expression of courteous appreciation to
a smile of greeting, for the man who had entered was Latimer.

He advanced, holding out his hand.

"I am glad you have come," he began to say. "I wanted at least a word
with you before I went on."

Then his smile died out, leaving blank amazement which a breath's space
later was alarmed questioning. He recalled later how for a second he
stood and stared. Latimer's face was white and damp with sweat. Its lines
were drawn and sunken deep. His eyes were fixed on the man before him
with something which had a ghastly resemblance to an unsteady smile which
was not a smile at all. He looked as if illness--or death--or madness had
struck him. He did not seem a sane man, and yet a stillness so deadly was
expressed by his whole being that it seemed to fill the small, neat,
business-like green-room.

Baird strode towards him and seized him by the shoulder.

"What is it? What is it? What is it?" he cried out.

Latimer's face did not alter in a line. He fumbled stiffly in his
breast-pocket and held out some pieces of yellowed letter-paper--this
being done stiffly, too. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. It seemed to
search every corner of the room and echo there.

"See!" he said. "These are two letters. A man wrote them to a poor,
half-mad child twenty years ago."