"Once again Robin roused Chris, as she had roused him on the night when he slept on the church porch; she just slipped her hands round his throat and lifted his face, and this time she kissed him.
"'Come with Robin,' she said.
"Chris opened his eyes and for a minute his little senses come struggling through his sleep, and then with them come dread. He looked up in Robin's face, piteous.
"'Did my daddy go out?' he asks, shrill, 'like my mama did?'
"'No, no, dear,' Robin said. 'He wants you to say good-by to him first, you know. Be still and brave, for Robin.'
"There wasn't no way to spare him, because the poor little figure on the bed was saying his name, restless, to restless movements. I was in there by him, fixing him a little something to take.
"'Where's Chris?' the sick man begged. 'Look on the church steps—'
"They took Chris in the room, and Insley lifted him up to Robin's knee on the chair beside the bed.
"'Hello—my nice daddy,' Chris says, in his little high voice, and smiles adorable. 'I—I—I was waitin' for you all this while.'
"His father put out his hand, awful awkward, and took the child's arm about the elbow. I'll never forget the way the man's face looked. It didn't looked used, somehow—it looked all sort of bare and barren, and like it hadn't been occupied. I remember once seeing a brand-new house that had burned down before anybody had ever lived in it, and some of it stuck up in the street, nice new doors, nice hardwood stairway, new brick chimney, and everything else all blackened and spoiled and done for, before ever it had been lived in. That was what Chris's father's face made me think of. The outline was young, and the eyes was young—young and burning—but there was the man's face, all spoiled and done for, without ever having been used for a face at all.