nfident enough to do what's necessary unless I've got
some man to make me do it. Perhaps I'd get the--the strength
or whatever it is, when I was much older. But by that time in
my case--I guess it'd be too late. Won't you help me, Rod?"

He turned his head away, without opening his eyes.

"You've helped me many times--beginning with the first day we met."

"Don't," he said. "I went back on you. I did sprain my ankle,
but I could have come."

"That wasn't anything," replied she. "You had already done a
thousand times more than you needed to do."

His hand wandered along the cover in her direction. She
touched it. Their hands clasped.

"I lied about where I got the money yesterday. I didn't work.
I begged. Three of us--from the saloon they call the Owl's
Chute--two Yale men--one of them had been a judge--and I.
We've been begging for a week. We were going out on the road
in a few days--to rob. Then--I saw you--in that old women's
dance hall--the Venusberg, they call it."

"You've come down here for me, Rod. You'll take me back?
You'll save me from the Venusberg?"

"I couldn't save anybody. Susie, at bottom I'm N. G. I
always was--and I knew it. Weak--vain. But you! If you
hadn't been a woman--and such a sweet, considerate one you'd
have never got down here."

"Such a fool," corrected Susan. "But, once I get up, I'll not
be so again. I'll fight under the rules, instead of acting in
the silly way they teach us as children."

"Don't say those hard things, Susie!"

"Aren't they true?"

"Yes, but I can't bear to hear them from a woman. . . . I
told you that you hadn't changed. But after I'd looked at you
a while I saw that you have. You've got a terrible look in
your eyes--wonderful and terrible. You had something of that
look as a child--the first time I saw you."

"The day after my marriage," said the girl, tearing her
face away.

"It was there then," he went on. "But now--it's--it's
heartbreaking, Susie when your face is in repose."

"I've gone through a fire that has burned up every bit of me
that can burn," said she. "I've been wondering if what's left
isn't strong enough to do something with. I believe so--if
you'll help me."

"Help you? I--help anybody? Don't mock me, Susie."

"I don't know about anybody else," said she sweetly and gently,
"but I do know about me."

"No use--too late. I've lost my nerve." He began to sob.
"It's because I'm unstrung," explained he