nscrutable.

On arriving at the hospital we were conducted directly to the room of
Winters. It was not different from other prison hospital quarters--neat
and clean, but bare and hard, it was unspeakably dreary. A single barred
window before which a yellow shade was drawn let in a half-light that
was reflected from the whitewashed walls and showed at the farther end
of the room a narrow cot and upon it the wasted form of Winters. It was
motionless and the face was pallid and the eyes closed and I feared we
had not come in time. I crossed the room and stood by the side of the
bed and Littell followed me. By the window the doctor and a nurse were
conversing in low tones, but when I looked towards them inquiringly they
discontinued their conversation and the doctor came over to me.

"If you have anything you wish to say to him," he said, "you had better
do it at once; he will not last long." But I had nothing to say that
made it worth while to rouse the dying man and I was waiting the end in
silence when Winters opened his eyes and after a vague wandering look
about him, fixed them upon me. I leaned over him.

"Do you know me?" I asked, and in a voice scarcely audible, he whispered
"Yes."

"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, t