As he shook his head drearily over the fire, the sombre reflections evoked by his review of his forlorn, distraught fate imprinted on his pallid, clear-cut face, his throat momentarily showing more definitely the marks of the fingers that had clutched it, his poverty, and its concomitant hopelessness, despite his native cleverness, expressed in his rough jeans clothes, and his broken boots, and his bent old hat, Rathburn’s heart smote him anew. “Jake,” he said, an insistent inward monitor clamoring against him, “you don’t know how sorry I am that I was so—so harsh.” He adopted in his uncertainty a word that Baintree often used; it expressed for him many phases of the physical and temporal world. “You don’t know how badly I feel about it.” “Waal,” said Baintree, carefully abstaining from any intimation of being appeased, although he made no definite sign of resentment. “I feel toler’ble bad myse’f.” He touched his throat with a gingerly gesture, as he rearranged his neck-gear. It appealed to Rathburn with all the power that the sight of physical injury, however slight, exerted upon him. He could without compunction have lacerated his fellow-creature’s sentiments, but for his cuticle he had a humane professional regard, and remorse found him an easy prey. “I’d give a hundred dollars if I hadn’t done it,” he said. “Waal—_I_ wouldn’t,” Baintree protested, with mock earnestness, “kase I never hed a hunderd dollars in all my life ter give,” he added dryly. Rathburn turned aside, clearing his throat with a sound that was much like a stifled groan. There was silence for some moments between them. The rain splashed ceaselessly into the gullies below the eaves. The roof leaked in more than one place, and now and then a solemn, intrusive series of drops fell upon the floor, with a deliberate iteration of chilly intimations. Once Rathburn thought he heard a wolf howl at no great distance, and then doubted if it were not the wind sounding a new and savage pipe. He began to fancy that Baintree, relishing his contrition, was disposed to make the most of it, and give him as much to be sorry for as his capacity for repentance could accommodate. But he strove to banish this caviling mood, incongruous with the injury he had done, and the regret and humiliation that it had entailed. His perceptions, however, could not be denied the prominent lugubriousness of Baintree’s mien, albeit his mental faculties were interdicted any deductions therefrom. Baintree’s voice had a latent reproach in its very tones as he resumed:—