hesitation and sprung up to feel his arms about her, to
hide her face against him, to open to him all her quivering heart. But
for that moment he did not wait.

With the utterance of the words his hand fell, and he moved away.

The opening and the closing of the door told her he had gone.

CHAPTER VIII

ARREST

"Ah, but what a night for dreams!"

The cool salt air came in from the sea like a benediction, blowing softly
about the sick man by the window, sending a gleam of life into eyes grown
weary with long suffering. He leaned back upon his pillows for the first
time in many hours.

"It is as if the door of heaven had opened," he said.

"You're not going yet, old chap!" Max answered, a curious blending of
grimness and tenderness in his voice.

"But no--not yet--not yet." Softly Bertrand made answer, but resolution
throbbed in his words also. "I must not fail her--my little pal--my bird
of Paradise. But the night is very long, Max, _mon ami_. And the
darkness--the darkness--"

Max's hand came quietly down and closed upon his wrist. "I'll see you
through," he said.

"Yes--yes. You will help me. You are one of those created to help. That
is why you will be great. The great men are always--those who help."

The words came slowly, sometimes with difficulty, but the young medical
student made no attempt to check them. He only sat with shrewd eyes upon
the sick man's face and alert finger on his wrist, marking the waning
strength while he listened. For he knew that the night was long.

Years afterwards it came to be said of him that his patients never died
until his back was turned. It was not strictly true, but it conveyed
something of the magnetism with which he wrought upon them. He knew the
crucial moment by instinct, when to grapple and when to slacken his hold,
and he never went by rule.

And so on that his second night of vigil by the side of a dying man,
though he recognized speech as a danger, he made no effort to silence
him. He knew that weariness of the spirit that finds no vent was a
greater danger still.

"So you think I have a future before me?" he said.

"I am sure of it." Bertrand spoke with conviction. "It will not be an
easy future, _mon ami_. Perhaps it will not be happy. Those who climb
have no time to gather the flowers by the way. But--it will be great. You
desire that, yes?"

"In a fashion," Max said. "I don't know that I consider greatness in
itself as specially valuable.