"Let me alone," he muttered. "Didn't I tell you these het-up rooms knock me out." She was silent--a quality in his voice, a husky thinness as if its vigor was pinching out, made her anxious. He was worn to the bone, the shade of himself. She slid her feet to the floor, and throwing off the blanket said: "Looks like to me something is the matter with you. The room ain't hot." "Oh, forget it. For God's sake, quit this talk about me." He closed the window and turned to her. As he advanced the lamp's glare fell full on him and she saw his face glistening with perspiration and darkened with unnatural hollows. In that one moment, played upon by the revealing side light, it was like the face of a skeleton and she rose with a frightened cry. "Pop! You _are_ sick. You look like you were dead." She made a step toward him and before her advance he stopped, bristling, fierce, like a bear confronted by a hunter. "You let me alone. You're crazy--sit down. Ain't I gone through enough without you pickin' on me about how I _look_?" She shrank back, scared by his violence. "But I can't help it. The room's like ice and you're sweating. I saw it on your forehead." He almost roared. "And supposin' I am? Ain't I given you a reason? Sweating? A Chihuahua dog 'ud sweat in this d----d place. It's like a smelting furnace." With a stiff, uncertain hand he felt in his pocket, drew out a bandanna and ran it over his face. "God, you'd think there was nothin' in the world but the way I _look_! I hiked down from the hills on the run to see you and you nag at me till I'm almost sorry I come." That was too much for her. The tears, ready to flow at a word, poured out of her eyes, and she held out her arms to him, piteously crying: "Oh, don't say that. Don't scold at me. I wouldn't say it if I didn't care. What would I do if you got sick--what would I do if I lost you? You're all I have and I'm so lonesome." He ran to her, clasped her close, laid his cheek on her head as she leaned against him feebly weeping. And what he said made it all right--it was his fault, he was ugly, but it was because of what she'd told him. That had riled him all up. Didn't she know every hurt that came to her made him mad as a she-bear when they're after its cub? "Will you be back tomorrow?" she said when he started to go. "Yes, in the morning. Eight be too early?" "No--but--" her eyes were wistful, her hands reluctant to loose his. "Will you have to leave the city soon?" "I guess so, honey." "Tomorrow?" "Maybe--but we'll get a line on that in the morning." "I wish you could stay, just for one day," she pleaded. "I'll tell you then. What you want to do now is rest. Sleep tight and don't worry no more. It's going to be all right." He gave her a kiss and from the doorway a farewell nod and smile. CHAPTER XXXII THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT