"I never will!" Edith cried out, in an agony of terror and pity. "O you poor man! I didn't know it was so awful. O you poor man!"
Mr. Rowan had stopped, gasping for breath, and, with his patched sleeve, wiped off the perspiration that was streaming down his face. Edith tore off her little calico apron with such haste as to break the strings. "Here, take this!" she said, reaching it out to him.
He took it with a shaking hand, and wiped his face again; wiped his eyes again and again, breathing heavily.
"Couldn't you be saved?" she asked, in a whisper. "Isn't there any way for you to get out of it?"
"No!" he said, and gave her back her apron. "No; and I wish that I were dead!"
"Don't say that!" the child entreated. "It is wicked; and perhaps you will die if you say it."
The drunkard raised his trembling hands, and looked upward. "I wish to God that I were dead!" he repeated.
Edith shrank back into the room. She was too much terrified to listen to any more. But after a moment he called her name, and she leaned out again. His face was calmer, and his voice more quiet. "Don't tell her what I have been talking about," he said, nodding toward the room. "I would sooner tear my tongue out by the roots than say anything to her."
"Supper's ready," Mrs. Rowan announced, coming towards the window. She had heard her husband's voice in conversation with Edith, and wondered greatly what was going on.
Mr. Rowan turned away, with a look of irritation, at sound of her timid voice, walked round the house, and came sulkily in to his supper.
Their meals had always been comfortless and silent; but now Edith tried to talk, at first with Mrs. Rowan; but when she saw that the woman's tremulous replies, as if she did not dare to speak in her husband's presence, were bringing an uglier frown to this face, and that he was changing from sullen to savage, she addressed her remarks and questions to him. Mr. Rowan was a surveyor, and a good one, when he was sober, and he was a man of some general information and reading. When he could be got to talk, one was surprised to find in him the ruins of a gentleman. Now his answers were surly enough, but they were intelligent, and the child, no longer looking at him from the outside, questioned him fearlessly, and kept up a sort of conversation till they rose from table.