“She is rich, probably,” said Uncle William.
“Rich?” The young man smiled bitterly. “She has what she earns. She works day and night. If she should stop, there would be nothing for either of us.”
“Not unless suthin’ come in,” said Uncle William. “Suthin’ might come in. You’d kind o’ like to see her, wouldn’t you?”
The artist held out a hand as if to stop him. “Not till I can pay her back, every cent!”
“Guess you need another pill, likely,” said Uncle William. He got up in the dark and groped about for the bottle. His great form loomed large above the bed as he handed it to the young man. “That’s four,” he said soothingly. “Jest about one more’ll fix ye.”
The young man swallowed it almost grudgingly. He lay back upon the pillow. “I can pay her the money sometime.” His gaunt eyes were staring into the dark. “But I can never make up to her for the way I treated her.”
“Mebbe she didn’t mind,” said Uncle William, non-committally. “Sometimes they don’t.”
“Mind? She couldn’t help minding. I was a fiend to her. I did everything but strike her.”
A smile grew, out of the dark, in Uncle William’s face. “I was thinkin’ about that ol’ chief,” he said slowly—“the one that give me the pills. I treated him—why, I treated him wuss ’n anything. ’Course, he wa’n’t like white folks; but I was fightin’ crazy with the fever, not sick enough to go to bed, but jest sittin’ around and jawin’ at things. I dunno how he come to take such a likin’ to me. Might ’a’ been on account o’ my size—we was about the same build. I’d set and jaw at him, callin’ him names. Don’t s’pose he understood half of ’em, but he could see plain enough I was spittin’ mad. He’d kind o’ edge up to me, grinnin’ like and noddin’, and fust thing I knew, one day, he’d fetched a pill and made me take it. I was mad enough to ’a’ killed him easy, but ’fore I could get up to do it, I fell asleep somehow. And when I woke up I felt different. You feel different, don’t you?”
The artist smiled through the soft dark. “I would like to get down on my knees.”