It's too late, my dear;--too late," he said and turned
his head on the pillow under it as if seeking rest. "You
don't--understand. Just as well for me perhaps. But I'm better
gone--for your sake, better gone."

The conviction of his words went through her like a sword-thrust.
He seemed to have passed beyond her influence, almost, she fancied,
not to care. Yet why did the look in his eyes make her think of a
lost child--frightened, groping along an unknown road in the dark?
Why did his hand cling to hers as though it feared to let go?

She held it very tightly as she made reply. "But, Guy, it isn't
for us to choose. It isn't for us to discharge ourselves. Only
God knows when our work is done."

He groaned. "I've given all mine to the devil. God couldn't use
me if He tried."

"You don't know," she said. "You don't know. We're none of us
saints, I think He makes allowances--when things go wrong with
us--just as--just as we make allowances for each other."

He groaned again. "You would make allowances for the devil
himself," he muttered. "It's the way you're made. But it isn't
justice. Burke would tell you that."

An odd little tremor of impatience went through her. "I know you
better than Burke does," she said. "Better, probably--than anyone
else in the world."

He turned his head to and fro upon the pillow. "You don't know me,
Sylvia. You don't know me--at all."

Yet the husky utterance seemed to plead with her as though he
longed for her to understand.

She stooped lower over him. "Never mind, dear! I love you all the
same," she said. "And that's why I can't bear you--to go--like
this." Her voice shook unexpectedly. She paused to steady it.
"Guy," she urged, almost under her breath at length, "you will
live--you will try to live--for my sake?"

Again his eyes were upon her. Again, more strongly, the flame
kindled. Then, very suddenly, a hard shudder went through him, and
a dreadful shadow arose and quenched that vital gleam. For a few
moments consciousness itself seemed to be submerged in the most
awful suffering that Sylvia had ever beheld. His eyeballs rolled
upwards under lids that twitched convulsively. The hand she held
closed in an agonized grip upon her own. She thought that he was
dying, and braced herself instinctively to witness the last
terrible struggle, the rending asunder of soul and body.

Then--as one upon the edge of an abyss--he spoke, his voice no more
tha