o freeze--in fact, it has begun already. Now if you can find
the shovel, you might employ yourself finely, digging a stairway.
You'll be up by midnight."

"Never mind about me," James said. "I'm going to keep you warm first."

But Urquhart was fretting. He frowned and moved his head about. "No,
no, don't begin that. It's not worth it--and I can't have you do it.
You ought to know who I am before you begin the Good Samaritan stunt.
I want to talk to you while I can. I've got a good deal to tell you.
That will be better for me than anything." Jimmy was prepared for
something of the kind.

"I believe it will," he said. "Go on, then, and get it over."

It had been his first impulse to assure the poor chap that he knew all
about it; but a right instinct stopped him. He would have to hear it.

So Urquhart began his plain tale, and as he got into it the contrast
between it and himself became revolting, even to him. A hale man might
have brazened it out with a better air. A little of the romance with
which it had begun, which indeed alone made it tolerable, would have
been about it still. A sicker man than Urquhart, who made a hard death
for himself, would have given up the battle, thrown himself at James's
feet and asked no quarter. Urquhart was not so far gone as that; a
little bluster remained. He did it badly. He didn't mean to be brutal;
he meant to be honest; but it sounded brutal, and James could hardly
endure it.

He saw, too, as the poor chap went on, that he was getting angry, and
doing himself harm. That was so. Every step he took in his narrative
sharpened the edge of the fate which cut him off. He would have made
a success of it if he could--but he had been really broken before he
broke his back, and the knowledge exasperated him.

So he took refuge in bluster, made himself out worse than he was, and
in so doing distorted Lucy. James was in torment, remembering what he
must. He felt her arms close about his neck; he felt the rush of her
words: "And oh, darling, I thought it was you--of course I thought
so--and I was proud and happy--that you should like me so much! I
looked at myself in the glass afterwards. I thought, 'You must be
rather pretty.' ..." Oh, Heaven, and this mocking, dying devil, with
his triumphs!

"Say no more, man, say no more," broke from him. "I understand the
rest. I have nothing to say to you. You did badly--you did me a
wrong--and her too. But it's done with, and she (God bless her!)