"Oh, I've given up," replied Ordway gruffly. "Every man has a right to give up some time, hasn't he?"
"I don't know about every man," returned Banks, stolidly, "but you haven't, Smith."
"Well, I've done it anyway," retorted Ordway, and turned his face to the wall.
As he lay there with closed eyes, he had an obscure impression that Banks—Banks, the simple; Banks, the impossible—was in some way operating the forces of destiny. First he heard the bell ring, then the door open and close, and a little later, the bleak room was suffused with a warm rosy light in which the vague shadows melted into a shimmering background. The crackling of the fire annoyed him because it suggested the possibility of physical comfort, and he no longer wanted to be comfortable.
"Smith," said Banks, coming over to the bed and pulling off the overcoat, "I've got a good fire here and a chair. I wish you'd get up. Good Lord, your hands are as hot as a hornet's nest. When did you eat anything?"
"I had breakfast in Botetourt," replied Ordway, as he rose from the bed and came over to the chair Banks had prepared. "I can't remember when it was, but it must have been since the creation of the world, I suppose." The fire grew suddenly black before him, "I'd rather lie down," he added, "my head is splitting and I can't see."
"Oh, you'll see all right in a minute. Wait till I light this candle, so the electric light won't hurt your eyes. The boy's gone for a little supper, and as soon as you've swallowed a mouthful you'll begin to feel better."
"But I'm not hungry. I won't eat," returned Ordway, with an irritable feeling that Banks was looming into a responsibility. Anything that pulled one back to life was what he wanted to escape, and even the affection of Banks might prove, he thought, tenaciously clinging. One resolution he had made in the beginning—he would not take up his life again for the sake of Banks.
"Yes, you must, Smith," remonstrated the other, with an angelic patience which gave him, if possible, a more foolish aspect. "It's after six o'clock and you haven't had a bite since yesterday at eight. That's why your head's so light and you're in a raging fever."
"It isn't that, Banks, it's because I've got to die," he answered. "If they don't hush things up with money, I may have to go back to prison." As he said the words he saw again the prison coat, with the double stripes of a second term, as in the instant of his hallucination.