"I don't rightly know how to express myself in this letter because I know what your feelings toward Pap must be like, and they are fierce. But I have got to try to write you a letter just the same, for there are some things that need explaining. At first, when my hotel and my Aura were burned down [here the writing was especially shaky] and I found that you and Dickie had both vamoosed, I thought that you had paid me out and gone off together. You can't blame me for that thought, Miss Sheila, for I had found him in your room at that time of night or morning and I couldn't help but see that he was aiming to kiss you and you were waiting for his kiss. So I was angry and I had been drinking and I kissed you myself, taking advantage of you in a way that no gentleman would do. But I thought you were different from the Sheila I had brought to be my barmaid.
"Well, ma'am, for a while after the fire, I was pretty near crazy. I was about loco. Then I was sick. When I got well again, a fellow who come over from Hidden Creek told me you had gone over to be at a ranch there and that you had come in alone. That sort of got me to thinking about you more and more and studying you out, and I begun to see that I had made a bad mistake. Whatsoever reason brought that damn fool Dickie to your room that morning, it wasn't your doings, and the way you was waiting for his kiss was more a mother's way. I have had some hard moments with myself, Miss Sheila, and I have come to this that I have got to write and tell you how I feel. And ask your forgiveness. You see you were something in my life, different from anything that had ever been there. I don't rightly know—I likely never will know—what you meant in my life. I handled you in my heart like a flower. Before God, I had a religion for you. And that was just why, when I thought you was bad, that it drove me crazy. I wonder if you will understand this. You are awful young and awful ignorant. And I have hurt your pride. You are terrible proud for your years, Miss Sheila. I ache all over when I think that I hurt your pretty mouth. I hope it is smiling now. I am moving out of Millings,—Me and Momma and Babe. But Girlie is agoing to marry Jim. He run right back to her like a little lost lamb the second you was gone. Likely, he'll never touch liquor again. I haven't heard from Dickie. I guess he's gone where the saloons are bigger and where you can get oysters with your drinks. He always was a damn fool. I would dearly like to go over to Hidden Creek and see you, but I feel like I'd better not. It would hurt me if I got a turn-down from you like it will hurt me if you don't answer this letter, which is a mighty poor attempt to tell you my bad reasons for behaving like I did. I am not sorry I thrashed Dickie. He had ought to be thrashed good and plenty. And he has sure paid me off by burning down my Aura. That was a saloon in a million, Miss Sheila, and the picture of you standing there back of my bar, looking so dainty and sweet and fine in your black dress and your frills—well, ma'am, I'll sure try to be thinking of that when I cash in.
"Well, Miss Sheila, I wish you good fortune in whatever you do, and I hope that if you ever need a friend you will overlook my bad break and remember the artist that tried to put you in his big work and—failed."
This extraordinary document was signed—"Sylvester." Sheila was left bewildered with strange tears in her throat.
CHAPTER VII
SANCTUARY
There came to the restaurant where Dickie worked, a certain sallow and irritable man, no longer in his early youth. He came daily for one of his three meals: it might be lunch or dinner or even breakfast, Dickie was always in haste to serve him. For some reason, the man's clever and nervous personality intrigued his interest. And this, although his customer never threw him a glance, scowled at a newspaper, barked out an order, gulped his food, stuck a fair-sized tip under the edge of his plate, and jerked himself away.
On a certain sluggish noon hour in August, Dickie, as far as the kitchen door with a tray balanced on his palm, realized that he had forgotten this man's order. He hesitated to go back. "Like as not," reasoned Dickie, "he didn't rightly know what the order was. He never does look at his food. I'll fetch him a Spanish omelette and a salad and a glass of iced tea. It's a whole lot better order than he'd have thought of himself."
Nevertheless, it was with some trepidation that he set the omelette down before that lined and averted countenance. Its owner was screwed into his chair as usual, eyes, with a sharp cleft between their brows, bent on his folded newspaper, and he put his right hand blindly on the fork. But as it pricked the contents of the plate a savory fragrance rose and the reader looked.
"Here, you damn fool—that's not my order," he snapped out.