eaven. It's only another
reason for holding back."

"Exactly," Lucas said quietly. "I don't know what Nap will say to me. He
will call me a shirker. But on the whole, doctor, I think I must hold
back a little longer."

"He'd better let me hear him!" growled Capper. "I wish to heaven you
were married. That's the kernel of the difficulty. You want a wife.
You'd be keen enough then. I shouldn't be afraid of your letting go when
I wasn't looking."

"Ah!" Lucas said, faintly smiling. "But what of the wife?"

"She'd be in her element," maintained Capper stoutly. "She'd be to you
what the mainspring is to a watch, and glory in it. Haven't you seen such
women? I have, scores of 'em, ready made for the purpose. No, you will
only go through my treatment with a woman to hold you up. It's a process
that needs the utmost vitality, the utmost courage, and--something great
to live for--a motive power behind to push you on. There's only one
motive power that I can think of strong enough to keep you moving. And
that is most unfortunately absent. Find the woman, I tell you, find the
woman! And--under Providence--I'll do the rest!"

He dropped back in his chair, cracking his fingers fiercely, his keen
eyes narrowly observant of every shade of expression on his patient's
face.

Lucas was still smiling, but his eyes had grown absent. He looked
unutterably tired.

"Yes," he said slowly at length. "I am afraid you have asked the
impossible of me now. But, notwithstanding that, if I could see my way
to it, I would place myself in your hands without reservation--and take
my chance. There are times now and then--now and then--" his words
quickened a little, "when a man would almost give the very soul out of
his body to be at peace--to be at peace; times when it's downright agony
to watch a fly buzzing up and down the pane and know he hasn't even the
strength for that--when every muscle is in torture, and every movement
means hell--" He broke off; his lips usually so steady had begun to
twitch. "I'm a fool, Capper," he murmured apologetically. "Make
allowances for a sick man!"

"Look here!" said Capper. "This is a big decision for you to make
off-hand. You can take three months anyway to think it over. You are
getting stronger, you know. By then you'll be stronger still. You won't
be well. Nothing but surgical measures can ever make you well. And you'll
go on suffering that infernal pain. But three months one way or another
won't make