Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/69

 Christ be merciful! I did it, Carleton. I don't know how. I did it."

No one answered him. No one spoke. For a moment that seemed like all eternity there was silence, then Breen, his arms still held out before him, walked across the room as a blind man walks in his own utter darkness, walked to the door and passed out—alone. Those few steps across the room—alone! I've thought of that pretty often since—they seemed so horribly, grimly, significantly in keeping with what there was of life left for the stricken man—alone. It's a pretty hard word, that, sometimes, and sometimes it brings the tears.

I don't know how I let him go like that. I was too stunned to move I guess, but I reached him at the foot of the stairs as he stepped out onto the platform. There wasn't anything I could say, was there? What would you have said?

No man knew better than Breen himself what this would mean to him. He was wrecked, wrecked worse than that other wreck, for his was a living death. There weren't any grand jurys or things of that kind out here then, not that it would have made any difference to Breen if there had been. You can't put any more water in a pail when it's already full, can you? You can't add to the maximum, can you? Don't you think Breen's punishment was beyond the reach of man or men to add to, or, for that matter, to abate by so much as the smallest fraction? It was, God knows it was—all except one final twinge, that I believe now settled him, though I'll say here that whatever it did