"No," firmly.
"But, Dick, it's torturing me. Was the child killed?"
Dick Marston's face looked curious. "Great Scott! don't you know what you——"
McBirney groaned inwardly. "Yes, I know. I was a coward. But I've got to know if—the kid—was killed."
"Coward!" gasped Dick—and Geoffrey put out his shaking hand.
"In mercy, Dick"—he was catching his breath, flushing, laboring with each word—"don't—talk about—Was the boy—killed?"
"Killed, no, sound as a nut—but you——"
"That's all," said McBirney, and his eyes closed, and he turned his face to the wall. But he did not go to sleep. He was trying to meet life with self-respect gone. The last thing he remembered was that second of utter rebellion against wrecking his strength, his good muscles—he had not thought of his life—to save the child. There had been no time to choose; his past, his character, had chosen for him, and they had branded him as that impossible thing, a coward. He put up his hand and felt bandages on his head; he must have got a whack after all in saving his precious skin. He remembered now. "Didn't jump quick enough, I suppose," he thought, with a sneer at the man in whose body he lived, the man who was himself, the man who was a coward. After a while he heard Dick Marston stir. He was bending over him.
"Got to go to dinner, old man," Dick said. "I wish you'd let me tell you what they all think about you."
McBirney shook his head impatiently, and Dick sighed heavily, and then in a moment the door shut softly.