"How's the leg?" asked Roger, stiffly.
"All right except for a little lameness. I'll sit down though, if you don't mind."
Dick sank wearily into a chair and there was a moment's silence. Roger could not have believed it possible for a human being to have changed as had Dick in less than a month. His ruddy brown hair was sprinkled with gray. He was thin, and his usually round face was sunken of cheek with heavy lines showing around his eyes and at the corners of the mouth.
"Supper's just ready," said Elsa. "You must be hungry, Dick." Dick pulled himself slowly out of his chair.
"Charley," he said, "and all the rest of you, I've just a few things I want to tell you before I try to pick up the old threads. Nothing you folks can say or do to show how you despise me can hurt me. I'm too low in my own opinion--At first, that afternoon Roger brought Felicia home, I made up my mind to kill myself. The only thing that kept me from it was realizing that Charley couldn't stand much more without losing her mind."
He paused to look at Charley, but she only gazed at him silently in return and he went on.
"When I went into Archer's Springs, I hadn't the slightest intention of ever coming back here. But lying there on the flat of my back, I came to the conclusion that the one way to help Charley endure what's happened would be to have it make a man of me. Then perhaps in the years to come, she would grow to think of Felicia as if she were thinking of the ordinary death of a lovely little child and not with the hell of remorse she's having now. As for me, I'll always have that remorse. That's common justice. But there's no reason why Charley should have it.
"I guess that's about all, except this. For two weeks I've gone over every afternoon to the saloon and sat there for two or three hours. And the sight and smell of the booze for the first time in my life made me want to vomit."
Dick paused again, trembling visibly and staring at Charley.
"I'm sorry, Dick," she said, her lips stiff, yet quivering. "I'm going to try to care for you again. But I don't know whether I can or not. Every night when I go to bed I see first your face that night all red and bloated and distorted, then Felicia's, the way Roger and I found her. I--I've got lots to forget, Dick."
"God knows you have, Charley. But you're going to give me one more trial, aren't you? Please, Charley!"