A strained, tense gesture as Hawksley seized the photograph; then his chin sank slowly to his chest. A moment later Cutty was profoundly astonished to see something sparkle on its way down the bed quilt. Tears! “I'm sorry!” cried Cutty, troubled and embarrassed. “I'm terribly sorry! I should have had the decency to wait a day or two.” “On the contrary, thank you!” Hawksley flung up his head. “Nothing in all God's muddied world could be more timely--the face of my mother! I am not ashamed of these tears. I am not afraid to die. I am not even afraid to live. But all the things I loved--the familiar earth, the human beings, my dog--gone. I am alone.” “I'm sorry,” repeated Cutty, a bit choked up. This was honest misery and it affected him deeply. He felt himself singularly drawn. “I want to live. Because I am young? No. I want to prove to the shades of those who loved me that I am fit to go on. So my identity is known to you?”--dejectedly. “Yes. You wish me to forget what I know?” “Will you?”--eagerly. “Will you forget that I am anything but a naked, friendless human being?” “Yes. But your enemies know.” “I rather fancy they will keep the truth to themselves. Let them publish my identity, and a hundred havens would be offered. Your Government would protect me.” “It is doing so now, indirectly. But why do you not want it known?” “Freedom! Would I have it if known? Could I trust anybody? Would it not be essentially the old life in a new land? I want a new life in a new land. I want to be born again. I want to be what you patently are, an American. That is why I risked life a hundred times in coming all these miles, why I sit in this chair before you, with the room rocking because they battered in my head. I do not offer a human wreck, an illiterate mind, in exchange for citizenship. I bring a tolerably decent manhood. Try me! Always I have admired you people. Always we Russians have. But there is no Russia now that I can ever return to!” Hawksley's head drooped again and his bloodshot eyes closed. Cutty sensed confusion, indecision; all his deductions were upset in the face of this strange appeal. Russian, born of an Italian mother and speaking Oxford English as if it were his birthright; and wanting citizenship! Wasn't ashamed of his tears; wasn't afraid to die or to live! Cutty searched quickly for a new handhold to his antagonism, but he found only straws. He was honest enough to realize that he had built this antagonism upon a want, a desire; there was no foundation for it. Downright likeable. A chap who had gone through so much, who was in such a pitiable condition, would not have the wit to manufacture character, camouflage his soul. “Hang it!” he said, briskly. “You shall have your chance. Talk like that will carry a man anywhere in this country. You shall stay here until you are strong again. Then some night I'll put you on your train for Montana. You want to ask questions. I'll save you the trouble by telling you what I know.”