Chapter Four


_His Victim's Trouble_

Yet he could not help pondering on the words of old Harding. Bill
Gregg had been a strange patient. He had never repeated his first
offer to tell his story. He remained sullen and silent, with his
brooding eyes fixed on the blank wall before him, and nothing could
permanently cheer him. Some inward gloom seemed to possess the man.

The first day after the shooting he had insisted on scrawling a
painfully written letter, while Ronicky propped a writing board in
front of him, as he lay flat on his back in the bed, but that was his
only act. Thereafter he remained silent and brooding. Perhaps it
was hatred for Ronicky that was growing in him, as the sense of
disappointment increased, for Ronicky, after all, had kept him from
reaching that girl when the train passed through Stillwater. Perhaps,
for all Ronicky knew, his bullet had ruined the happiness of two
lives. He shrugged that disagreeable thought away, and, reaching the
hotel, he went straight up to the room of the sick man.

"Bill," he said gently, "have you been spending all your time hating
me? Is that what keeps you thin and glum? Is it because you sit here
all day blaming me for all the things that have happened to you?"

The dark flush and the uneasy flicker of Gregg's glance gave a
sufficient answer. Ronicky Doone sighed and shook his head, but not in
anger.