“I was always shy and easy scared, Hank. I never owned it to a livin’ man before; but a man is like to say things just before he goes out for good that he wouldn’t say before. “You knowed ol’ man Leclerc, didn’t you? _Her_ dad, you know. Used to live down-river half a day’s hard walkin’. I reckon that ol’ man was about the best friend I ever had, ’ceptin’ you, Hank. Kind of seemed to understand me like. Wonder if he’s hearin’ me now! Don’t give a damn if he is! He knowed it wasn’t in me to be bad, and he knows I done right. I tell you, Hank, I ain’t scared, nor ’shamed nor nothin’. Damn me, I can see Donahan a-dyin’ yet, and it does me good, Hank! Does me good!” The little man’s eyes blazed, and his face seemed to take fire from them. But the light died as quickly as it was kindled, like a fire in too little fuel whipped by a wind too strong. A soft light of reminiscence lingered where the fiercer glow had died. “Used to go down there pretty often when I could; part to see the ol’ man, and most to see his girl. Nice little thing, Hank; awful nice little thing! Don’t you think so? Good as an angel, too, but weak like a woman can be. I hain’t nothin’ again’ her, Hank—so help me God, I hain’t! I wasn’t the man for her. She’d ought to ’ve had a big, strong, quiet feller what wasn’t afraid of the devil. Some feller like you, Hank—or Donahan. “Oh, let the hottest fires in hell eat Donahan!” The little man shook with a passion that seemed grotesque, because it was too big for him. “And I kep’ goin’ down there, and goin’ down there, till I begun to be happy, Hank. Begun to thinkin’ part of this world was made for me. Begun to thinkin’ about havin’ a woman and babies; and somehow I got to feelin’ bigger and stronger, and not sneakin’ any more. “‘Peared like the girl liked me. Never had nothin’ to do with no woman ’cept my mother, you know. Oh, Hank, why can’t a feller be a man when he wants to so bad? I dunno. I tried. “Well, one time I went down there and ol’ man Leclerc was pretty sick. Said he was a-goin’ to die sure thing. Wheezin’ already and pickin’ at the blankets. Calls me up to him, and after he got done tellin’ me what he was goin’ to do d’rectly, he says: ‘Sheep, my boy, I’ve brought her up as near like a French lady as I knowed how. She hain’t able to hustle for herself, and—well, ain’t she a pretty girl? Why the devil don’t you ask me for her?’ “And I asked, and the ol’ man said ‘yes,’ and that was his last word, ’cept ‘God be with both of you.’ Took all his breath to say that, seemed like. “And so I saw the ol’ man under ground and come up here with the girl. Got the missionary, Father Donahan, to do the tyin’. (Oh, damn him!) And then I begun to be happy. Seemed like God heard the ol’ man for a spell, tho’ his voice was weak when he said it. Now I guess mebbe he didn’t hear. Does he always hear, Hank?” “Dunno,” muttered the big man, who sat with his face in his hands; “seems like He ain’t out here ’t all, sometimes.”