"Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked next. His lips moved and I thought I distinguished the name "Littell." I looked towards Littell. He was standing at the foot of the bed, and his attitude was tense and his face was white and drawn in the way that indicates suffering in a strong man. He was not looking at me; his eyes were rivetted upon the bed: in that room for him there was only Winters. I touched his arm.
"He wishes to speak to you," I said.
He seemed not to comprehend my words until I had repeated them and then he moved close to the side of Winters and said very slowly and distinctly:
"I am Littell; do you wish to speak to me?" At the sound of his voice Winters looked up into his face and, recognizing him, smiled, and with an effort spoke:
"I want to thank you for defending me," he said, "and to tell you I am not guilty."
"I know you are not," Littell answered hoarsely; "I have always known it." And then, after a moment's struggle with himself, he added, in a voice as gentle and as tender as a woman's, "You have been wronged and you have suffered, but you have borne it bravely, and it is over now."
As he listened to these words the face of Winters lighted up and he half raised himself on his pillow and, turning to the speaker, reached out his hands in a feeble gesture of gratitude. Littell took them in his and sank down till his face was hidden beside the dying man. I bowed my head and thus we awaited the end. After a while, Littell arose and gently releasing the hands that had been clasping his, laid them tenderly down and then with a little gesture of infinite appeal he touched the fair hair that was clinging to the damp forehead and stood looking down at the still form. Winters was dead, but on the boyish face at last was an expression of happiness and of peace, and to Littell it had been granted to bring it there.
I turned away—there was nothing more that I could do—and left Littell for the moment with the dead and his thoughts. As I passed Miles on my way out he stopped me.
"What am I to do now, sir?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said, "leave it to me." He hesitated before he asked: