efore morning came his pulse was steady--a little jumpy but
reassuringly rhythmic. But the sunlight was two hours old upon the
floor before the silent watcher saw the white lids flutter and then
part with a gaze that was once more sane. Garry's smile had always
been mocking; it was shamed and wistful now. The clearness with which
he remembered was a miraculous thing.

"You see, Steve," he faltered. "You see now, don't you, that I'm not
worth trying to save? Oh, you've tried hard; I knew how hard you were
trying! That's why I did--what I did. I'm no good; there's no use,
friend of mine. Why don't you let me go?"

Steve groped and found the hand groping for his. He nodded his head,
bruskly, to hide his eyes. But his voice was not brusk.

"I almost shot you, Garry," he said, and there was a husky echo of
horror in the words. "In another minute I'd have killed you. Right
now I don't know just what kept me from firing."

"And I meant you to," Garry murmured almost inaudibly, "I planned that
you should--started to plan last night. I--I've been hating you for
twelve hours--hating you because you were making me ashamed to do the
thing I wanted to do most."

He tried to rise and fell back, slack. But his voice was stronger with
sudden, swelling bitterness.

"It wasn't for myself, Steve," he cried. "It wasn't for what I might
get out of it, or--or what it might bring me, I used to scoff at
whatever others considered big and fine and clean, but I played it
straight, just the same. I played it as well as I knew how--straighter
than you'd believe. I thought it would make her happier, because I
tried that hard. And she . . . Steve, if I had been a woman--a woman
like what I thought she was, little and clean and white--I couldn't
have let a man like him so much as touch my little finger! And she--by
God, she married him!"

The agonized voice broke there--the voice of a boy who had had to learn
that it is woman and not women who is fastidious. Garry sat and
swallowed, fighting for self-control. His eyes were numb, but Steve's
had taken fire, for he knew that the hour for which he had been waiting
had come at last.

"You've been trying to help me," Garry found his voice again, "you've
been trying to throw me a line. And, for a day or two, I tried to
catch it, Steve. But it isn't in me to try that hard, any more. Some
men do things for what there is in it--the pecuniary reward, I mean;
some men--you for