'His friend,' she repeated, a
little louder. 'You must have been, if he had given you this, and sent
you to me. I feel I can speak to you--and oh! I must speak. I want
you--you who have heard his last words--to know I have been worthy of
him. . . . It is not pride. . . . Yes! I am proud to know I understood
him better than any one on earth--he told me so himself. And since his
mother died I have had no one--no one--to--to--'
"I listened. The darkness deepened. I was not even sure whether he had
given me the right bundle. I rather suspect he wanted me to take care
of another batch of his papers which, after his death, I saw the manager
examining under the lamp. And the girl talked, easing her pain in the
certitude of my sympathy; she talked as thirsty men drink. I had heard
that her engagement with Kurtz had been disapproved by her people. He
wasn't rich enough or something. And indeed I don't know whether he had
not been a pauper all his life. He had given me some reason to infer
that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out
there.
"'. . . Who was not his friend who had heard him speak once?' she was
saying. 'He drew men towards him by what was best in them.' She looked
at me with intensity.
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