nd, by God! I shall stop at nothing to save your life."

"And my love for you, that you pretend is so much to you, I suppose that
this is the means you take to awaken it. Admitting, for the moment, that
you could induce me to shirk my duty, how should I love you for it? Ask
yourself that."

But Bennett had but one answer to all her words. He struck his fist into
the palm of his hand as he answered:

"Your life is more to me than any other consideration."

"But my life--how do you know it is a question of my life? Come, if we
are to quarrel, let us quarrel upon reasonable grounds. It does not
follow that I risk my life by staying--"

"Leave the house first; we can talk of that afterward."

"I have allowed you to talk too much already," she exclaimed angrily.
"Let us come to the bottom of things at once. I will not be influenced
nor cajoled nor bullied into leaving my post. Now, do you understand?
That is my final answer. You who were a commander, who were a leader of
men, what would you have done if one of your party had left his post at
a time of danger? I can tell you what you would have done--you would
have shot him, after first disgracing him, and now you would disgrace
me. Is it reasonable? Is it consistent?"

Bennett snapped his fingers.

"That for consistency!"

"And you would be willing to disgrace me--to have me disgrace myself?"

"Your life--" began Bennett again.

But suddenly Lloyd flashed out upon him with: "My life! My life! Are
there not some things better than life? You, above all men, should
understand that much. Oh, be yourself, be the man I thought you were.
You have your code; let me have mine. You could not be what you are, you
could not have done what you did, if you had not set so many things
above merely your life. Admit that you could not have loved me unless
you believed that I could do the same. How could you still love me if
you knew I had failed in my duty? How could you still love me if you
knew that you had broken down my will? I know you better than you know
yourself. You loved me because you knew me to be strong and brave and to
be above petty deceptions and shams and subterfuges. And now you ask me
to fail, to give up, to shirk, and you tell me you do so because you
love me."

"That is all so many words to me. I cannot argue with you, and there is
no time for it. I did not come here to--converse."

Never in her life before had Lloyd been so angry as at that moment. The
so