And Dale, breaking his own rule, or forgetting in his anger that he had refused to discuss things with this imaginary voice, answered wrathfully.
"This girl cares for me--that's the difference between us. She offers me love. And that's something you never had."
"How do you know?" said the dead man. "Your Mavis was one of many. And, besides, don't be so sure that Mavis wasn't fond of me. She never ran away from me. She came when I whistled for her."
Dale brandished his arms wildly, turned round, and stared at the pine-trees and the bracken. It seemed to him that some imperishable essence of the man was really here, mingling with the shadows, floating in the dusky air; and that possibly over there among the rocks, if one went to look for it, one might see a simulacrum of the man's bodily shape--perhaps only a gray shadowy outlined form, the odious stranger of dreams, but more vague than in the dreams, stretched on his back, holding up his blood-stained boots, and grinning all over his battered face.
"Yes, perhaps so," said the voice. "But I notice that you don't come in to look for me. You keep to the ride still. Now you've got so very close to me, why do you turn shy of the last little bit? Is it that you wish me to save you trouble by showing myself?"
And Dale made gestures of semi-insane fury, and spoke in a loud, hoarse voice.
"Yes, show yourself if you want to. You 'aarve my leave. Come out an' stan' here before me. I'm not afraid of you--now or hereafter."
"Hereafter--hereafter--hereafter." As Dale moved away slowly, the dead man seemed to mock him, to laugh at him derisively. "Hereafter--yes, that's a big word. Yes, go and talk that out with God."
He went up one of the narrow tracks that led toward the dead man's Orphanage, intending to look at it and perhaps hear again the evening hymn; but before he got to those broken fences he turned and began to wander aimlessly through the trees. All his mind was now full of the awful thought of God, and of the eternal punishment to which he believed God had condemned him.
Christ had tried to save him; but the other two persons of the Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity had interposed, had prevented Christ from holding any further communication with him, and together had issued the fearful decree. That was it. Christ had not deserted him; he had lost the right ever to approach Christ again. That accounted for everything--the unutterable desolation, the dark despair, the overwhelming necessity of death without one ray of hope.