"I'm awfuly sorry!" he said, not looking up. "I heard what he said. He's right, you know."
"I'm sorry. And I'm afraid this is a place where I cannot help."
She put her hand on his head, and he brought it down and held it between his.
"Two or three times," he said, "when things were very bad with me, you let me hold your hand, and we got past somehow—didn't we?"
She closed her eyes, remembering the dawn when, to soothe a dying man, in the presence of the mission preacher, she had put her hand in his. Billy Grant thought of it too.
"Now you know what you've married," he said bitterly. The bitterness was at himself of course. "If—if you'll sit tight I have a fighting chance to make a man of myself; and after it's over we'll fix this thing for you so you will forget it ever happened. And I—— Don't take your hand away. Please!"
"I was feeling for my handkerchief," she explained.
"Have I made you cry again?"
"Again?'
"I saw you last night in your room. I didn't intend to; but I was trying to stand, and——"