"Noel! Noel!" he half-sobbed. "I thought the next moment that I was dying and—if it had only been true! For then for the first time came the realization of what I had lost. I must have staggered into my room and locked the door before I fainted, for light was coming in the window when I recovered consciousness and I was lying across my bed. With consciousness came the suffering hat has not ceased for two years!...
"I will not try to tell you what the next few days were. I lost track of time. I could not eat or drink or sleep. My revolver lay on the table and a dozen times I picked it up to blow out my brains, but the thought of the baby stopped me. I wept because I couldn't do it. She was so completely part of me that I did not see how I could live any longer.
"Finally, I made up my mind that no matter how dreary and empty my life might be, I must; live for the boy's sake, and with that resolution I locked up the revolver, burned every letter and photograph of her that I had, I held them in the fire, one by one, until the flames burned my fingers! Then I came into the world again.
"I fled to work like a man running away from something and the work brought—success! Success!"—And he ended with a grating laugh.
Then he turned his white, drawn face and feverish eyes on the still figure in the chair.
"Now," he demanded, "my friend, which of us deserves the most pity?"
[CHAPTER VI]
CLOSING FOR THE DEFENSE
A minute—two—minutes—passed but Noel gave no sign that he had heard the question. The hand that shaded the eyes prevented Floriot from finding in his face any clue to his thoughts. He turned away with a sigh that might have been weariness or disappointment or both and sank slowly into a chair.