'. When you was
with him it use' to be that you sort o' wanted to stay--an' it seemed
the same way now. He was that kind.

"'Don't you think,' he says to her--an' it was like he was humble, but
it was like he was proud, too--'don't you think,' he says, 'that I ever
dreamed you could forgive me. I knew better than that,' he told her.
'It's what you must think o' me that's kep' me from sayin' to you what I
come here to say. But I'll tell you now,' he says, 'I'm sick an' alone
an' done for. An' what I come to see you about--is the boy.'

"'The boy,' Calliope says over, not understandin'; 'the boy.'

"'My God, yes,' says he. 'He's all I've got left in the world.
Calliope--I need the boy. I need him!'

"I rec'lect Calliope puttin' back that light thing from her head like it
smothered her. He laid back in his chair for a minute, white an' still.
An' then he says--only of course his words didn't sound the way mine
do:--

"'I robbed your life, Cally, an' I robbed my own. As soon as I knew it
an' couldn't bear it any longer, I went away alone--an' I've lived alone
all exceptin' since the little boy come. His mother, my son's wife,
died; an' I all but brought him up. I loved him as I never loved
anybody--but you,' he says, simple. 'But when his father died, of course
I hadn't any claim on the little fellow, I felt, when I'd been away from
the rest so long. _She_ took him with her. An' when I knew she'd left
him here I couldn't have kep' away,' he says, 'I couldn't. He's all I've
got left in the world. I all but brought him up. I must have him,
Cally--don't you see I must have him?' he says.

"Calliope looks down at him, wonderful calm an' still.

"'You've had your own child,' she told him slow; 'you've had a real
life. I'm just gettin' to mine--since I had the boy.'

"'But, good God,' he says, starin' up at her, 'you're a woman. An' one
child is the same as another to you, so be that it ain't your own.'

"Calliope looked almost as if he had struck at her, though he'd only
spoke a kind o' general male idea, an' he couldn't help _bein'_ a male.
An' she says back at him:--

"'But you're a man. An' bein' alive is one thing to you an' another
thing to me. Never let any man forget that,' she says, like I never
heard her speak before.

"Then I see the tears shinin' on his face. He was terrible weak. He
slips down in his chair an' sets starin' at the fire, his hands hangin'
limp over the arms like there wasn't none of him le