“Even so he’s not beautiful,”—Archibald studied the face on the pillow as he spoke. A weak, evil face it was even now when the man’s spirit did not look out through his eyes, but Peg’s tender heart could not find helplessness quite unbeautiful.
“I sort of think he was a good looking little boy,” she said. “His nose is straight and nice and his mouth could have been real sweet if he hadn’t spoiled it. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if his mother’d been awfully proud of him when she got him all fixed up to go somewhere.”
Her face was wistful, sweet with pity for the little boy of the long ago, whom life had wrecked, and the picture her words had called up made Archibald look at the sick man with kinder eyes.
“Oh, Peg! Peg!” he murmured softly, “what a friend to sinners and weaklings you are!”
“They’ve got to have friends,” said Pegeen.
The doctor came back after a while. The Smiling Lady and Richard Meredith came too, and Mrs. Benderby, after her day of ironing and her three-mile walk home, toiled up the Back Road to see if there was anything she could do to help. Mr. Neal rode over and offered to spend the night, but, in the end, Archibald and the doctor stayed. Pegeen, protesting stoutly, was carried off home by Miss Moran.
“Nothing you could do to-night, Peggy,” said the doctor. “Save your ammunition.”
Life and Death stood beside the bed in the little house on the Back Road that night; but it was Death who turned and went away in the gray of the morning.
“He’ll do now,” said the doctor, “but it was touch and go for a while. The oxygen held him. Sometimes I wonder—”
His strong jaw set once more in fighting grimness— “But it isn’t up to me to wonder. Beating Death, in a catch-as-catch-can, is my end of the job, and I rather think I’ve downed him this time. What life will do with the man is another story.”