w, and you must be strong for me and help me to do my
duty. We must live up to the best that is in us and do what we think is
right, no matter what risks we run, no matter what the consequences are.
I would not have asked you to help me before--before what has
happened--but now I need your help. You have said I helped you to be
brave; help me to be brave now, and to do what I know is right."

But Bennett was still blind. If she had been dear to him before, how
doubly so had she become since she had confessed her love for him!
Ferriss was forgotten, ignored. He could not let her go, he could not
let her run the slightest risk. Was he to take any chance of losing her
now? He shook his head.

"Ward!" she exclaimed with deep and serious earnestness. "If you do not
wish me to risk my life by going to my post, be careful, oh, be very
careful, that you do not risk something that is more to us both than
life itself, by keeping me from it. Do you think I could love you so
deeply and so truly as I do if I had not kept my standards high; if I
had not believed in the things that were better than life, and stronger
than death, and dearer to me than even love itself? There are some
things I cannot do: I cannot be false, I cannot be cowardly, I cannot
shirk my duty. Now I am helpless in your hands. You have conquered, and
you can do with me as you choose. But if you make me do what is false,
and what is cowardly, and what is dishonourable; if you stand between me
and what I know is my duty, how can I love you, how can I love you?"

Persistently, perversely, Bennett stopped his ears to every
consideration, to every argument. She wished to hazard her life. That
was all he understood.

"No, Lloyd," he answered, "you must not do it."

"--and I want to love you," she went on, as though she had not heard. "I
want you to be everything to me. I have trusted you so long--had faith
in you so long, I don't want to think of you as the man who failed me
when I most needed his help, who made me do the thing that was
contemptible and unworthy. Believe me," she went on with sudden energy,
"you will kill my love for you if you persist."

But before Bennett could answer there was a cry.

"It is the servant," exclaimed Lloyd quickly. "She has been
watching--there in the room with him."

"Nurse--Miss Searight," came the cry, "quick--there is something
wrong--I don't know--oh, hurry!"

"Do you hear?" cried Lloyd. "It is the crisis--he may be dyi