have
you breaking down with looking after me. Don't say a word. I know you.
You think it would be high jinks to wear your eyes out and your hands
off for me, but I won't have it. The cottage is bigger than I remember.
But maybe you've added to it, you old witch."

He stepped to the very edge of the cliff and looked straight down, to
where, two hundred feet below, the perpendicular was first broken by a
slope of titanic bowlders, among which the trunks of dwarfed pines
twisted here and there into the light, from the deep-buried soil.

"How easy," he thought, "to make an end!"

A dozen feet away old Martha fussed and fumed, like a hen over a
duckling.

"Come back! Come back!" she said.

But the Poor Boy put on his teasing face, and danced a double shuffle,
on the very edge of the big drop. Then, as suddenly, the fun went out of
his eyes, and he came back.

"Oh, Martha," he said, his hand on her shoulder, "I am so tired."

Upon the great leather lounge in front of the living-room fire, he lay
down. His ankles crossed, his hands crossed, his eyes on the ceiling, he
looked like those effigies of knights which you have seen on tombs.

His eyes closed. He could hear her, dimly, putting wood on the fire.

"Yes," he said, "you must have help. I see that," the handsome mouth
smiled; "'only I don't really see it, said Alice,'" he went on,
"'because my eyes are closed, and I am falling so fast into a deep dark
well that the white rabbit will never, never catch up with me.' Bet you
a box of candy, Martha, you can't pry my eyes open with a crowbar."

For a long time the old woman dared not move, for fear her boots might
creak. She continually wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and
rather than snuffle, heroically endured a running nose.

He had grown up in her care. Between herself and nature it was always a
close race as to which should be the first to know his needs. But even
to a stranger it must now have been obvious that he had not slept well
for a long time. His face, having passed from under the control of his
intellect, was haggard and harassed, the muscles of expression twitched
and jumped. The hands upon his breast, their fingers interlocked,
strained, and twisted.

A shoe creaked, a strong, cool hand lay lightly on the Poor Boy's
forehead. He became quiet, one by one his muscles went into a state of
complete relaxation; he breathed now with long, slow breaths. An hour
passed.

The hand was lifted fro