He sank into a chair, his face in the shadow. "I can see it now," he pursued in a low voice, "just as if it was yesterday. How tickled I was! and so was she, to see me so. There were just us two, and now--I'm alone. Oh! it's years ago, but it's one of those things that'll hurt every time I remember it--now she's gone--will hurt till I go, too! Of course it didn't cost her much, poor little woman. It couldn't; she didn't have it. How she managed to save the few poor dollars for it, God knows; I can't figure it. But she did, and one day when I got in from selling my papers, she met me and gave it to me. And I was only a kid, Maisie, and I up and bellered like a calf, with my arms around her,--and she cried, too; and it wasn't very long,--" his voice broke for a moment,--"it wasn't very long after that,--it was dark and cold I remember, and snowflakes in the air,--and I was crying and trying to pull away from them while they were leading me away--from--her grave." It was very still. The girl averted her eyes; they were full of tears. O'Byrn sat in the shadow, his head bent. In a moment he resumed. "I've knocked around from pillar to post since then, Maisie, from one end of the land to the other. I've lived high and low, from glad rags to just plain rags. I could always get a job--and I could always lose it. Oh, yes, I might as well be frank," with a bitter laugh. "It's whisky--a heritage. Not all the time--fits that I can't help--every now and then--like bad dreams, only worse--they're real! It's at those times that the old feeling grips me, too,--to keep movin'. Why, I usually wake up where everything's strange--and I have to ask 'em where I am. I've been on the road to something worth while so often--and always kicked it over. And it cropped out in me so young! You'd be surprised--" "Oh, don't!" she cried. He stared at her mutely. "What makes you say such horrible things about yourself?" she pursued passionately, a quiver in her voice. "Do you want me to believe--" "The truth," he interrupted, gently. "Only the truth. Of course, I haven't known you long, but it seems like all my life. I'd feel like a yellow dog, somehow, if I shouldn't tell you. But then, we won't say anything more about it. I'm not to blame, exactly; it was a present. We'll go back, there isn't much to tell. It's always been the newspaper business with me. Odds and ends at first, then they found I could write, and I've been at it ever since. I wasn't much on education, but I've picked up quite a lot, and I've seen the country. Oh, I've had my dreams. Maybe I could do something sometime--if--" He broke off abruptly.