that
a will of steel was born in him--the sensitiveness of the mother,
perhaps, and the will of the ancestor. His life hung by a thread when we
found him and his nerves had been twisted and tortured by the ordeal of
that night. And that isn't all. There was more than fighting. Something
that preceded the fight was even harder on him. I knew from his look when
he set out for Agua Fria that he was under a terrible strain; a strain
worse than that of a few hours' battle--the kind that had been weighing
day after day on the will that grimly sustained its weight. And that
wound in the head was very close, very, and it came at the moment when
he collapsed in reaction after that last telling shot. Something snapped
then. There was a fracture of the kind that only nature can set. Will he
come out of this delirium, you ask? I don't know. Much depends upon
whether that strain is over for good or if it is still pressing on his
mind. When he rises from his bed he may be himself or he may ride away
madly into the face of the sun. I don't know. Nobody on earth can know."

"Yes, yes!" said John Wingfield, Sr. slowly.

In Jack's wildest moments it was Mary's voice that had the most telling
effect. However low she spoke he seemed always to recognize the tone and
would greet it with a smile and frequently break into verses and scraps
of remembered conversations of his boyhood exile in villa gardens. One
morning, when she and Dr. Patterson had entered the room together, Jack
called out miserably:

"Just killing, killing, killing! What will Mary say to me, now?"

He raised his hands, fingers spread, and stared at them with a ghastly
look. She sprang to the bedside and seized them fast in hers, and bending
very close to him, as if she would impart conviction with every quivering
particle of her being, she said:

"She thinks you splendid! She is glad, glad! It is just what she wanted
you to do. She wished every bullet that you fired luck--luck for your
sake, to speed it straight to the mark!"

He seemed to understand what she was saying, as one understands that
shade is cool after the broiling torment of the sun.

"Luck will always come at your command, Mary!" he whispered, repeating
his last words when he left the Ewold garden to go to the wars.

"And she wants you to rest--just rest--and not worry!"

This had the effect of a soothing draught. Smilingly he fell back on the
pillow and slept.

"You put some spirit into that!" said