you can stand and then some already. How's that? Is it comfort?"

"Absolute," Lucas said with a smile. "Don't go, doctor. I am quite able
to talk. I suppose matters haven't altered very materially since you
saw me last?"

"I don't see why you should suppose that," said Capper. "As a matter of
fact things have altered--altered considerably. Say, you don't have those
fainting attacks any more?"

"No. I've learnt not to faint." There was a boyishly pathetic note about
the words though the lips that uttered them still smiled.

Capper nodded comprehendingly. "But the pain is just as infernal, eh?
Only you've the grit to stand against it. Remember the last time I
overhauled you? You fainted twice. That's how I knew you would never face
it. But I've hurt you worse to-day, and I'm damned if I know how you
managed to come up smiling."

"Then why do you surmise that you have been brought here on a fool's
errand?" Lucas asked.

"I don't surmise," said Capper. "I never surmise. I know." He began to
crack his fingers impatiently, and presently fell to whistling below his
breath. "No," he said suddenly, "you've got the physical strength and
you've got the spunk to lick creation, but what you haven't got is zeal.
You're gallant enough, Heaven knows, but you are not keen. You are
passive, you are lethargic. And you ought to be in a fever!"

His fingers dropped abruptly upon Lucas's wrist, and tightened upon it.
"That brother of yours that you're so fond of, now if it were he, I could
pull him out of the very jaws of hell. He'd catch and hold. But you--you
are too near the other place to care. Say, you don't care, do you, not a
single red cent? It's all one to you--under Providence--whether you live
or die. And if I operated on you to-morrow you'd die--not at once, but
sooner or later--from sheer lack of enthusiasm. That's my difficulty.
It's too long a business. You would never keep it up."

Lucas did not immediately reply. He lay in the stillness habitual to
him, gazing with heavy eyes at the motes that danced in the sunshine.

"I guess I'm too old, doctor," he said at last. "But you are wrong in one
sense. I do care. I don't want to die at present."

"Private reasons?" demanded Capper keenly.

"Not particularly. You see, I am the head of the family. I hold myself
responsible. My brothers want looking after, more or less."

"Brothers!" sniffed Capper, with supreme contempt. "That
consideration wouldn't keep you out of h