begin all over again--to find the necessary
raw material or a possible substitute, and then to build the apparatus
and machinery necessary to produce the part he required. Thus the
heart-breaking task progressed, and Nadia watched her co-laborer become
leaner and harder and more desperate day by day, unable in any way to
lighten his fearful load.

In the brief period of rest following a noonday meal, Stevens lay prone
upon the warm, fragrant grass beside the "Forlorn Hope," but it was
evident to Nadia that he was not resting. His burned and blistered hands
were locked savagely behind his head, his eyes were closed too tightly,
and every tense line of his body was eloquent of a strain even more
mental than physical. She studied him for minutes, her fine eyes
clouded, then sat down beside him and put her hand upon his shoulder.

"I want to talk to you a minute, Steve," she said gently.

"All x, little fellow--but it might be just as well if you didn't touch
me. You see, I'm getting so rabid that I can't trust myself."

"That's exactly what I want to talk to you about." A fiery blush burned
through her deep tan, but her low, clear voice did not falter and her
eyes held his unflinchingly. "I know you better than you know yourself,
as I've said before. You are killing yourself, but it isn't the work,
frightfully hard and disheartening as it is, that is doing it--it's
your anxiety for me and the uncertainty of everything. You haven't been
able to rest because you have been raging and fuming so at unavoidable
conditions--you have been fighting _facts_. And it's all _so_ useless,
Steve, between you and me--everything would check out on zero if we'd
just come out into the open."

The man's gaunt frame seemed to stiffen even more rigidly.

"You've said altogether too much or else only half enough, Nadia. You
know, of course, that I've loved you ever since I got really to know
you--and that didn't take long. You know that I love you and you know
how I love you--with the real love that a man can feel for only one
woman and only once in his life; and you know exactly what we're up
against. Now that _does_ tear it--wide open!" he finished bitterly.

"No, it doesn't, at all," she replied, steadily. "Of course I know that
you love me, and I glory in it; and since you don't seem to realize
that I love you in exactly the same way, I'll tell you so. Love you!
Good heavens, Steve, I never dreamed that such a man as you are really
e