“But you never did me any harm, Joe.”
“Yes, I did—lots. You didn’t know—but I did. That’s why I wanted you to come so bad. I wanted to square things—before I had to go.”
“But you are all right, Joe. You are not going to die. You are much better than when I saw you last.”
“Because I can talk, you think so,” he answered. “But I am cold to my waist—I know what that means; and I ain’t grumbling. It’s all right, now that you have come. Queer that all the time we’ve known each other, this is the first time I’ve talked to you! ’Tana, you must let me tell Dan Overton all—”
“All! All what?”
“Where I saw you first, and—”
“No—no, I can’t do that,” she said, shrinking back. “Joe, I’ve tried often to think of it—of telling him, but I never could. He will have to trust or distrust me, but I can’t tell him.”
“I know how you feel; but you wrong yourself. Any 350 one would give you credit instead of blaming you—don’t you ever think of that? And then—then, ’Tana, I tried to tell him down at the Ferry, because I thought you were in some game against him. I managed to tell him you were Holly’s partner, but hadn’t got any farther when the paralysis caught me. I hadn’t time to tell him that Holly was your father, and that he made you go where he said; or that you dressed as a boy and was called ’Monte,’ because that disguise was the only safety possible for you in the gambling dens where he took you. Part of it I didn’t understand clearly at that time. I didn’t know you really thought he was dead, and that you tramped alone into this region in your boy’s clothes, so you could get a new start where no white folks knew you. I told him just enough to wrong you in his eyes, and then could not tell him enough to right you again. Now do you know why I want you to let me tell him all—while I can?”
It had taken him a long time to say the words; his articulation had grown indistinct at times, and the excitement was wearing on him.
Once the door into the room where the child lay swung open noiselessly, and he had turned his eyes in that direction; but the girl’s head was bowed on the arm of his chair, and she did not notice it.