The speaker blinked, for his eyes were smarting. "I feel, somehow, as
if she was here to-night—as if this girl was her and I was her daddy.
She might have looked something like this young lady if she had lived.
She would have made a big difference in me."
Tom felt a hand seek his. It was a bony, big-knuckled hand not at all like 'Poleon Doret's. When it gave his fingers a strong, firm, friendly pressure his throat contracted painfully. He raised his eyes, but they were blurred; he could distinguish nothing except that Jerry Quirk had sidled closer and that their shoulders all but touched.
Now Jerry, for all of his crabbedness, was a sentimentalist; he also was blind, and his voice was equally husky when he spoke:
"I'd of been her daddy, too, wouldn't I, Tom? We'd of shared her, fifty-fifty. I've been mean to you, but I'd of treated her all right. If you'll forgive me for the things I've said to you maybe the Lord will forgive me for a lot of other things. Anyhow, I'm goin' to do a little rough prayin' for this kid. I'm goin' to ask Him to give her a chance."
Mr. Quirk did pray, and if he made a bad job of it, as he more than suspected, neither of his earthly hearers noticed the fact, for his words were honest, earnest. When he had finished Tom Linton's arm was around his shoulders; side by side the old men sat for a long time. Their heads were bowed; they kept their eyes upon Rouletta Kirby's face. Doret stood over them, motionless and intense; they could hear him sigh and they could sense his suffering. When the girl's pain caused her to cry out weakly, he knelt and whispered words of comfort to her.
Thus the night wore on.
The change came an hour or two before dawn and the three men watched it with their hearts in their throats. Mutely they questioned one another, deriving deep comfort from each confirmatory nod and gesture, but for some time they dared not voice their growing hope. Rouletta's fever was breaking, they felt sure; she breathed more deeply, more easily, and she coughed less. Her discomfort lessened, too, and finally, when the candle-light grew feeble before the signs of coming day, she fell asleep. Later the men rose and stole out of the tent into the cold.
Doret was broken. He was limp, almost lifeless; there were deep lines about his eyes, but, nevertheless, they sparkled.
"She's goin' get well," he said, uncertainly. "I'm goin' teach dat li'l bird to fly again."
The partners nodded.