licia had loved the little burro. Used to wash his face and brush his
foolish mane. Felicia! Little lost Felicia! Roger groaned and sat up.

His moment of reckoning had arrived, as it arrives once to every man.

First he thought of Felicia. He recalled that first day on the train
when she had sat in his lap so long and he had felt the whisper of fate
in their meeting. He came down through the desert days with her. How
pitifully few there were of them, after all! And he lived them over, one
by one. He recalled her loveliness, her childish curiosity, her love of
his work. He thought of her affection and of her timidity, her shrinking
fear of a rough word. And suddenly he groaned and said aloud:

"Thank God in His mercy that she didn't see me when I throttled Ernest!"

Ernest! The friend of his boyhood and his young manhood. Generous,
sweet-tempered, easy going Ernest! How patiently he had endured Roger's
temper! How loyally he had devoted himself to Roger's experiments. How
utterly he had given himself to their friendship. Why had he betrayed
Roger at the last? What had happened? Roger's brain seemed on fire as he
turned over in his mind the events that had led to Tuesday's tragedy.
Charley had come to him and had said:--

Well--no matter what she had said. Long before she had told him that his
life failure was due to his selfish indifference to other people. He
remembered that he had not believed her. But now the words seemed seared
into his brain.

Roger took a long drink, then as methodically as he could he examined
his own temperament. First, he tried to consider himself as if he were
Ernest looking at Roger. What had Roger ever done for Ernest? He had
been a constant spur to Ernest mentally, forcing him into new fields of
research and experiment, but only after all, for Roger's own purposes,
or Roger's own ideas. What return had Roger ever made for the exquisite
hospitality of Ernest's home and the tenderness of Ernest's mother?
None! None whatever! What return even in kindness had Roger ever made
for Ernest's untiring efforts to promote the solar device. Once more
Roger whispered huskily:

"None! None at all! Less than nothing!"

So Ernest must see him as a brain devoid of any human qualities save
that of quick temper. Thank heaven, Felicia never had seen him angry but
once! But Charley had seen every red hate that had swept him since he
had come to the desert. What would he not give if this were not so! More