Paul Veniza laid his hand on the other's shoulder, as much to seek, it seemed, as to offer sympathy. He shook his head.
“I don't know,” he said blankly.
Hawkins' watery blue eyes under their shaggy brows traveled miserably in the direction of the staircase.
“I—I ain't got the right,” he choked. “You go up and talk to her, Paul.”
Paul Veniza ran his fingers in a troubled way through his white hair; then, nodding his head, he turned abruptly and began to mount the stairs.
Hawkins watched until the other had disappeared from sight, watched until he heard a door open and close softly above; then he swung sharply around, and with his old, drooping shoulders suddenly squared, strode toward the door that shut him off from Doctor Crang and the man he had recognized as his passenger in the traveling pawn-shop earlier that night. But at the door itself he hesitated, and after a moment drew back, and the shoulders drooped again, and he fell to twisting his hands together in nervous indecision as he retreated to the center of the room.
And he stood there again, where Paul Veniza had left him, and stared with the hurt of a dumb animal in his eyes at the top of the staircase.
“It's all my fault,” the old man whispered, and fell to twisting his hands together once more. “But—but I thought she'd be safe with me.”
For a long time he seemed to ponder his own words, and gradually they seemed to bring an added burden upon him, and heavily now he drew his hand across his eyes.
“Why ain't I dead?” he whispered. “I ain't never been no good to her. Twenty years, it is—twenty years. Just old Hawkins—shabby old Hawkins—that she loves 'cause she's sorry for him.”