lways be
afraid at times, I mean?"

"Yes. You're bigger than I am. I can't understand you, I never can
wholly. I've given up hope. We're all afraid of things we can't
completely understand."

Silently the man passed his hand across his face, unconsciously; his arm
fell lax at his side. As the girl had known, he did not follow the lead,
would not follow it unless she directed the way.

"You said you fancied I could forget what's past," he said at last. "Did
you honestly believe that?"

"Yes, or ignore it."

"Ignore it--or forget!" The fingers of the great hands twitched. "Some
things one can't ignore or forget, girl. To do so would be superhuman.
You don't understand."

"No; you've never told me. You've suggested at times, merely suggested;
nothing more."

"You'd like to know why--the reason? It would help you to understand?"

"Yes; I think it would help."

"It might even lead to making you--unafraid?"

A halt this time, then, "Yes, it might possibly do even that."

Again the man looked at her for long in silence, and again very gravely.

"I'll tell you, then," he said. "It isn't pleasant for me to tell nor for
you to hear; but I'd like you to know why--if you can. They're all back,
back, the things I'd like to forget and can't, a very long way. They date
from the time I first knew anything."

The girl settled deeper into the soft coat, her eyes half closed.

"You told me once you couldn't remember your mother even," she
suggested.

"No, nor my father, nor any other relatives, if I ever had any. I was
simply stranded in Kansas City when it was new. I wasn't born there,
though, but out West on a prairie ranch somewhere. The tradition is that
my parents were hand-to-mouth theatrical people, who'd got the free home
craze and tried to live out on the west Kansas desert, who were dried out
and starved out until they went back on the road; and who then, of
course, didn't want me. I don't know. Anyway, when my brain awoke I was
there in Kansas City. As a youngster I had a dozen homes--and none. I was
any one's property--and no one's. I did anything, accepted whatever
Providence offered, to eat. Animals must live and I was no exception. The
hand seemingly of every man and woman in the world was against me, and I
conformed to the inevitable. Any one weaker than I was my prey, any one
stronger my enemy. I learned to fight for my own, to run when it was
wisest, to take hard knocks when I couldn't avoid them--and