When he had finished the sun still poured its golden shower into the
room. He rose to his feet and lifted his chilled hands high to receive
its blessing. He felt the blood tingle through his transparent
fingers.

In the next room he heard the tramping of feet and a feeble curse or
two. He dropped his hands and sat down again. The nurse came in with
his breakfast.

"The man next door?" he asked. "Is he leaving to-day, too?"

"Yes."

"Where does he go?"

"To Fairview."

A memory of that first night with its piercing terror sent a shiver
through him.

"They brought him in the same day I came," he ventured, half musingly.
"At the beginning he made a lot of noise, but lately..."

She set the tray down upon the bed. "They had to put him in a
strait-jacket," she said, significantly. "He's quite hopeless. He
tried to kill his wife and his child ... and he set fire to the home.
He's an Italian."

"Yes ... so I was told."

The nurse departed and he drank the cup of muddy coffee on the tray.
He laid the cup down and sat staring at the square cut in the center
of the thick oak door leading into the corridor. Presently he heard
the swish of a woman's skirt passing the opening, followed by the
pattering footsteps of childhood. There came the sound of soft weeping
... the swishing skirt passed again, and the pattering footsteps died
away. The nurse returned.

"The Italian's wife and child have just been here," she said. "They
let the woman look for the last time at her husband through the hole
in the door."

Fred put his head between his hands. "He tried to murder her and yet
she came to see him," he muttered, almost inaudibly. "I dare say he
abused her in his day, too."

The woman gave him a sharp glance. "You're married, aren't you?"

He looked up suddenly, reading the inference in her question. "Yes ...
but my wife won't come..."

The nurse left the room and he put his face in his hands again. The
sun was traveling swiftly. He shifted his position so that he could
get the full benefit of its warmth. He thought that he had banished
the memory of Helen Starratt forever, but he found his mind
re-creating that final scene with her in all its relentless
bitterness... She had come that day to salve her conscience ... to pay
her tithe to form and respectability ... perhaps moved to fleeting
pity. He had seen through every word, every gesture, every glance. Her
transparency was loathsome. Why did he read her so pe