Stepping to the bed I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to have him look round. He snarled savagely, turning farther away. I remember keeping my hand on his shoulder and trying to get him to turn over and talk to me. I sat on the bed and pleaded with him. After he did turn, he looked at me searchingly for a while, and, when he spoke, expressed surprise that I would ever speak to him again. I don’t recall what I said, but suddenly he looked at me sharply and said: “See here! I have a great big thought--is it true?--tell me! Do you care for me more than you have let me know, but have fought it because it was right to---- Is it so? _Is_ it?” And I, seeing him melting under my influence, and knowing that I had set to work deliberately to bring this melting about, anxious to gain my ends, conscious of what a fiend he was when thwarted--I did not have the courage to contradict him outright; and, if I did make some half dissent, was at least keeping my hold on him, literally, by the touch of my hand, while wondering how far it would do to let him think he was right--enough at least to gain this point about the boys, so he would take back his threats and let go the punishment. I was conscious of making some compromise with my conscience on the ground of the exigencies of the case; conscious that the look in his eyes, before we were done talking, was that of a tamed, or, rather, subdued, animal, instead of an angry, morose one; yet I really did nothing except just to be my undisguised self--soft and pitying and tender to this man whose evil temper I now understood. I let him see that I did not despise him, even for this revelation; but that I wanted to help him and them; still I did not entirely dispel that thought which had come to him, and think I hoped he would continue to think that perhaps it was true--for a time, at least. Downstairs we all talked it over together, and he gave me his word before them all that that should end it. And it did. My intimacy with the family increased. I felt their dependence upon me, and was easier now that he frankly showed his interest in me before his wife; it seemed to take the sting from the recollection of that tragic night in the office.