"Well, you know how the next day you remember some of the things you did, and half remember others, and have the shakes and horrors all around, and make up your mind you'll never do so and so again? That's me--at this moment. But the past I'm facing is a million times harder to face than the average spree. It covers years and years. It's black as pitch. I don't recall any white places. Everything that the law of man forbids I've done, and everything that the law of God forbids. I won't detail. It's enough that I know. Some wrongs I can put finger to and right; others have gone their way out of reach, out of recovery. Maybe I don't sound sorry enough? I tell you it takes every ounce of courage I've got to remember my past, and face it. Was it all bone pressure? Am I really changed? Am I accountable for what I did? Was it I that did wicked things right and left, or was it somebody else that did 'em? Another thing, is the change permanent? Am I a good man now, or am I having some sort of a fit? Fetch me a hand-glass off the bureau, will you?" Blizzard looked at himself in the mirror. "Seems to me," he said, "I've changed. Seems to me I don't look so much--like hell, as I did. What do you think?" "I think, Blizzard," said Dr. Ferris, "that when you were run over as a child you hurt your head. I think that even if I hadn't cut off your legs you would have grown up an enemy of society. I think that up to the time of your accident, and since you have come out of ether just now, are the only two periods in your life when you have been sane, and accountable for your actions. Between these two periods, as I see it, you were insane--clever, shrewd--all that--but insane nevertheless. I think this--I _know_ it. Even the expression of your face has changed. You look like an honest man, a man to be trusted, an able man, a kind man, the kind of man you were meant to be--a good man." "You really think that?" "It isn't what I think, after all; it's what _you_ feel. Do you wish to be kind to people--friends with them? To do good?" "That is the way I feel _now_. But, doctor--will it last?" "It's got to last. Blizzard. And you've got to stop talking." "But will they give me a chance? Lichtenstein could send me to the chair if he wanted to." "He won't do that. He will _understand_." "I should like Miss Barbara to feel kindly toward me." "She will. I hope that your mind has changed about her, too?" "That," said Blizzard, "is between me and my conscience. Whatever I feel toward her will never trouble her again." XLVIII